An Unwanted Homecoming
by CAPtainAmerica77
Summary: Codi Martina was hoping to go home, write her novel and see her boyfriend again. She never thought that she'd have to return to her home town in search for her little sister. Can her relationship survive? More importantly can she survive?
1. Welcome Home

I was born and raised in Silent Hill. When I was 10 years old my mother and father moved us across Tolucca Lake to Shepherd's Glen. It was a small town where everybody knew everybody. I lived right down the street from the Shepherds.

I started my sixth grade year at Shepherd's Glen Middle school. I was the tallest girl there only shorter than a few boys. My hair was long and blonde. Blue eyes shone bright like stars in the night sky. I still remember when I met Alex Shepherd, his great,great,great,great grandfather had help found the town.

"Hi I'm Alex Shepherd. You must be new here." he said. Alex was taller than me by about an inch at this point. His brown hair was a mess and hung in his eyes a bit.

"Hi. I'm Codi Martina. Pleasure to meet you." I said brushing some of my hair out of my eyes.

"Do you want to sit by me today at lunch?" he asked. I said yes and sat with him at lunch all the way through High school. By Freshman year we were officially dating to no one's surprise.

Most days after school I would go home to his house and spend the evening with him. Sometimes we'd play with his little brother Josh. Other times we would just enjoy each others company. One time we even dyed the ends of my hair red in his parents' bathroom before they got home.

 _"Alex are you sure you know what you're doing?"_

 _"Of course. I've seen my mom dye her hair plenty of times." Alex said taking the hairdye outt of the box._

 _"Just don't turn my whole head fucking red." I said._

 _"You'd still look beautiful either way. Now lean your head back and tie off where you want the red to start." he said kissing my nose. I rolled my eyes and sectioned off the last 3 inches of my hair._

 _Alex mixed together the dye and began applying it to my hair. My hair turned out great but poor Alex didn't wear any gloves so his hands and arms were red for the next month and a half. I found it hilarious, Alex not so much._

When we graduated I was the valedictorian and had to give a speech. Alex and I spent many long nights in his room's secret crevice behind the bookcase preparing my speech. I made sure to thank all the right people, my mother, my father, my baby sister, Alex and his family, and everyone else who supported me. I would practice my speech until even Alex had it memorized.

After Graduation I was going to go away to college in New York. I'd be so far away from Alex and couldn't even visit him since he'd be in the military. It broke my heart at the end of the summer when I had to say goodbye to him. We promised to stay together and write as often as we could. I gave him a kiss goodbye and was off to the airport with my parents.

Its been 4 years since I left. I graduated and got a job as an author. I had released 5 successful horror novels filled with gore and puzzles. My sixth book was supposed to be due at the end of the year. I came back home to write and see if Alex was there. It had been so long since I had heard from him, I was worried.

Walking up the front steps to our house I turned the knob and tried to open the door. It was locked. That was odd considering mother's car was in the driveway. The spare key was above the door frame. Without even standing on my tiptoes I could easily reach the key. Turning the key the door clicked signifying it was unlocked. I opened the door and was greeted by the familiar smell of home.

Everything was in the same place. A coat hanger to the left of the door with mother's coat and father's wind breaker. I always thought he should get a new one but insisted that it was a timeless fashion statement, it was not.

I lugged my suitcase up the stairs and into my bedroom. It hadn't changed at all, I would've thought by now my parents would have made it into a theater or work room of some sort. Unpacking I thought about all the memories in this room: my first kiss with Alex, trying on my prom dress for the first time, my first time with Alex and finding out I had gotten into my first choice college.

I walked around the whole house trying to find someone. My sister should be home since its the summer, maybe she had gotten a job and was at work. Dad was probably at work but mom should have been home if her car was here. There was no one to be found anywhere. I opened the fridge and made myself a sandwich before sitting down to watch some TV. I watched a whole marathon of Star Trek before I decided to see if mom was at the Shepherds'.

Walking down the street it was foggy and I could barely make out a silhouette. Not wanting to make small talk if it was an old neighbor I walked quietly to Alex's house. On the porch was Alex, at least I thought it was him.

"Alex? Is that you?" I asked walking up to the porch.

"Codi?"

"It is you!" I exclaimed running up the porch into his arms. "I've missed you so much." I said into his neck.

"I've missed you too. I wrote, did you get any of my letters?" he asked holding me tight.

"No sorry. But that doesn't matter now, I'm just so glad to see you." Alex didn't say anything just held me. It was so nice to be back home in the arms of some one so familiar to me.

"Is my mother in there?" I asked looking up at him.

"I don't know. Why?" Alex asked releasing me.

"She wasn't at the house. Neither was father or Natalie. I didn't see that many people coming into town either." I said wondering what had happened.

"Same. Most of the Main street seems to be closed. Lets go in, maybe my mom can tell us whats going on." Alex said. He held the door open for me and we walked inside.

 **So what did you guys think? I just beat Homecoming today and was inspired to write my own story. Don't worry I'm not abandoning the rest of my stories, just starting another one.**

 **-CAPtainAmerica77**


	2. Shepherd's Shelter

Alex's house hadn't changed that much either. The door to the basement was locked and the door to the dining room wouldn't budge even with the two of us pushing it. We went upstairs to look for his parents, they weren't in his room but we did find a cassette tape with a note to his father.

"They never wrote to me. You were the only one who did." Alex said.

"I'm sorry Alex."I said placing my hand on his shoulder. He smiled at me.

"Come on. Lets see if we can find something to play this on."

We checked in his old room where Josh still slept in. The old flashlight Alex gave to help Josh was his nightmares was on the bed. We took it. In the secret crevice was a map drawn by a child, probably Josh, of the house.

When we got back downstairs Alex's mom, Lillian, was sitting in the rocking chair looking out the window. There was also a trail of water to her coming from the basement.

"Mom." Alex said. Lillian kept rocking. "Mom" Alex said as we got closer.

"Alex what are you doing here?

"Just got discharged I was in the hospital for a little bit but I'm fine now." he said. I didn't know he was in the hospital.

"You've been gone too long." she said looking at Alex out of the corner of her eye.

"Where is everybody? Where's josh?Where's the Martinas'?"

"I don't know you're father went to look for him. Now he's gone everyone is gone." she said. Its not just my family who is gone.

"Mom what's going on here what happened?" Alex asked taking the revolver from her lap.

"Mrs. Lillian?" I asked.

"I miss your brother Alex." she said. _What did she mean miss him? Isn't Josh living with them still?_ I thought.

"Look I'll find him I had this dream. I just have a feeling he's in trouble. But don't worry I'll find Joshua. Mom your dress is- what was that?" Alex asked both of us turning to see where the sound was coming from.

"The basement." she said eyes not moving from the window.

"Stay here Mrs. Lillian. We'll go check it out." I told her.

Alex and I walked down the basement steps to see the basement was flooded.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"I don't know. Wait what was that?" Alex said eyes darting across the water.

"What was what?"

"I thought I saw movement in the water. Never mind, it was probably just my imagination." Alex said jumping down into the water. I followed in after him both of us moving towards the generator. Something brushed against my leg.

"Alex something is in here with us. I just brushed against my leg." I said looking to see where it was now. I could see some ripples behind Alex but the water was too dark to see anything else. "Alex behind you!" I yelled just as the monster leaped at him.

Alex dodged and the creature went back into the water. It breached the surface and sat there looking at Alex and I. Alex took a out a combat knife and took a fighting stance.

"Stay back Codi." he told me.

"You don't have to tell me twice." I said.

The monster had no eyes and its mouth had sharp teeth poking out from skin that looked like it was being pulled back. Its arms were long and human like with sharp nails longer than even my arms on the hands. It had no legs and looked like a mermaid without the find part, except more skin like and bloody.

Alex slashed at the creature and hit a few times before it jumped at him. He dodged which meant it was coming right for me. I jumped out the way at the last second and it hit the wall. Sitting stunned in the water I grabbed a nearby piece of wood and smashed its skull in. Blood pooled on the surface of the water with brain matter.

"Are you okay?" I asked Alex.

"Fine. What was that thing?" he answered.

"I don't know but I'm glad its dead." I said noticing some red on Alex's arm. "Alex you're not fine you have a scratch. Take off your jacket and let me fix it." I told him.

Alex knowing if he started this argument he would loose took off his jacket and set on top of the washer that was always breaking down. He rolled up his sleeve and winced as the fabric brush the cut. It wasn't deep but like a razor cut was bleeding a lot. Taking a tee shirt off the dryer I applied pressure and waited for the bleeding to stop.

"You've been working out." I said.

"Military kept me busy."

"Did the military put you in the hospital?" I asked.

"Sort of." he said.

"Want to tell me why? I mean I am your girlfriend and am very concerned about your well being." I said resting my hand on my hip while the other one held the shirt.

" We entered a small village. It was quiet enough but a rocket hit our vehicle a couple hundred feet in. Guys were dying all around me, Sgt. Nash pulled me and some other guys to safety behind a concrete wall. The last thing I remember was the wall coming down on me. I woke up in the hospital.

"I spent weeks there healing and doing physical therapy. I wrote a letter to you everyday, but I guess the hospital never sent them. I'm just glad I'm with you now though." he said looking down at me.

"Alex that's terrible. I'm so sorry." I said.

"Its okay. I'm better now. The most important thing is we find out what's going on here. And that I keep you safe." Alex said taking my free hand in his. Our finger interlocked like they used to, easily and comfortably. He kissed me in the cold basement water. "I love you Codi."

"I love you too." I said.

"I missed hearing that." he said with a chuckle. "Hey I think the bleeding has stopped." I removed the shirt and it had. I threw the shirt back on the dryer and Alex put his Jacket back on.

"Dammit the generator needs gas."

"Wait here's the garage door remote. Maybe your dad left some gas in there, this note makes me think he did." I said showing Alex the note.

"Yeah lets check it out."


	3. Pitstop

The remote worked and inside the garage was tools scattered around and gas can.

"Its empty."I said. Picking it up it was much too light.

"I think I saw a semi over on main street. Maybe we can siphon some gas from it. That is assuming you know how to siphon gas?" Alex said.

"The military never taught you that valuable life skill huh? Don't worry sweetie I know how to siphon gas." I said.

"Can you be anymore wonderful?"Alex asked rhetorically picking up a steel pipe.

The two of us walked out of the garage and the same type of monster that attacked us in the basement crawled out of a hole in the wall. Alex beat it to death with the steel pipe and we ducked in the hole and followed the path into the park.

"Remember how we used to bring Josh and Natalie here after picking them up from school?" Alex asked me nudging a swing with his pipe.

"Yeah I remember when you fell off the bouncy horse." I laughed at the memory.

"In my defense those aren't very accommodating to people 6 foot and above." Alex said.

"In the horse's defense most people over 6 foot aren't supposed to play on them." I countered. Natalie had challenged Alex to a race on the horses and Alex wanting to keep me happy, not that I cared either way accepted. He was on the horse for a total of 10 seconds before he fell off. Josh and Natalie were both so concerned while I sat there laughing.

"There's the truck." Alex said peering through a chain link gate. "Now to just get over there."

"Try prying open the gate with the pipe." I suggested.

Alex pried the gate open and we walked over to truck careful to avoid any monsters that may be over there. Thankfully there were none.

"Think there's enough gas to start the generator?" I asked shining the flashlight into the tank.

"It'll have to do. We can't open the back door without emptying the basement." Alex said.

Siphoning the gas was easy, I had learned how to do it for one of my novels in the apocalypse. Apocalypse stories were very big right now.

The generator started with the gas and the basement began to empty. We checked the room beyond the film we had to cut. Alex said this room was a secret room that his dad never let him in, the one time he saw part of it his dad was furious.

"Where's the dog?" Alex asked when we got to the backyard.

" When your mom said everyone was missing, I guess she did mean everyone." I said. Alex's dog, Suki was a very nice dog. She was a border collie and was the friendliest dog you'd ever meet.

"What's that hanging on the fence?" I asked pointing to the fence by the tree house.

" I don't know." Alex said walking over to it.

Alex and I used to spend hours in the tree house with Josh. We would play house or dinosaurs or board games. Josh used to love playing house when Natalie came over with me. I think he had a crush on her. When we played Alex was the dad, I was the mom and Josh was our son. Sometimes Natalie was his girlfriend sometimes she was just his best friend.

"Its Josh's back pack. But why would he leave it here?" Alex thought aloud.

"I don't know. Hey do those look like footprints?" I asked.

"They look like two sets. Maybe Josh and Natalie are together. Lets follow them." We followed the footprints into Rose Heights cemetery.


	4. Creeping Through the Cemetery

Like the bodies the cemetery was cold and dead. The only sounds were our footsteps and the wind.

"Do you think Natalie and Josh would come here? I mean Nat used to be terrified of even saying this place's name." I said.

"I don't know, but its where the footprints lead. Hopefully they're here." Alex said. I shivered as a small gust of wind blew past us. Alex took off his jacket and handed it to me.

"Thanks Alex." I said putting it on. It was a little big in the shoulders and arms but fit pretty well length wise, one of the bonuses when you're about the same height as your boyfriend.

We made our way towards the East garden and saw a man digging two graves. He didn't seem to notice us so we crept by. The path suddenly stopped and dropped down about 6 feet to the east garden.

"I'll go down first." I said sitting down and pushing off the ledge onto the ground. I heard a loud howl and turned to see a feral dog with no skin and eyes jump down in front of me. I fumbled around and pulled out the knife and mimicked Alex's stance from earlier.

The Feral, as I dubbed it, lunged at me. I jumped to the right and slashed at its back once. It whimpered and slowly turned to face me. I took this time to slash at its face. Once. Twice. Three times before it was stunned. I plunged the knife deep into its skull.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked running over to me.

"I'm fine. I think I did pretty well." I said spinning the knife in my hand before accidentally dropping it to the ground.

In the middle of the east garden was a ruined fountain. The front of it had a gold plate with half a tree on it.

"From the looks of this riddle we need to find the other half of this plate." Alex said taking the plate and handing it to me. Putting it in the jacket pocket I realized carrying it around would not be an enjoyable experience.

Alex had to help me get up onto the other side of the garden so we could continue to the west garden. Hopefully the other plate would be there. We squeezed through a small vertical hole in the wall and worked our way through the family crypts. Ducking and squeezing through a few more holes we made it closer to West garden.

Between the Fitch and Holloway mausoleums there was a Feral eating a bloody, freshly-dead body. Hoping to sneak past it was only a dream as it noticed us almost immediately. Alex killed it and kept it distracted while I grabbed the other plate. Now I lugging two heavy plates around. Great.

At the end of the West Garden was a gate with a slot for the two plates. We placed the plates in and the gates opened to the parking lot.

"Well they weren't there." Alex said.

"Thanks Katherine Obvious."

"What?" Alex asked not knowing what I was talking about.

"Katherine Obvious. You know someone who is being very obvious?" I said.

"Its Captain Obvious. You never knew that?"

"No. You never noticed I always said Katherine Obvious?"

"Touche."

There was no help at the Police Station sadly. So we kept going. We made our way down the street and saw someone hanging flyers on the notice board. We approached slowly and she fell off the ladder.

"Dammit." She grunted holding her knee. It was Elle Holloway.

"You always were a klutz." Alex said.

"You okay?" I asked holding out my hand and helping her up.

"Alex? Codi?" she asked. "Oh my God it is you guys!" she said hugging us.

"Hey Elle." Alex said.

"Its so good to see both of you."

"Your mom said I might find you here."

"It feels like its been forever." she said. "

yeah you alone out here

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again. You took off without saying goodbye, at least Codi said goodbye." Elle said to Alex.

"Yeah well I'm not here long. Have you seen Joshua or Natalie?" Alex asked sounding a tad defensive. He never did like this place.

"No I haven't sorry." she said returning to the flyers.

"Jesus. What the hell is going on here?" I asked noticing the high amount of flyers.

"I don't know. But everyday there are more and more flyers to put up. Everyday more people disappear." she said exasperated.

"I had no idea." Alex said

"And if you did? Would you have done anything?" she said turning on him.

"Yeah I would've come back for Josh and gotten him the hell out of here. The same with Natalie." Alex said. He was always very protective of both our siblings.

"God knows what trouble they're in now." I said.

"Trouble? Look around. This whole place is trouble!"

"I know. I get it." Alex said. "But I have to find my brother. He's my responsibility."

"And Natalie is mine." I said.

"After that I'm gone." Alex said.

"I suggest you do the same" I added.

"Alex. Codi. Wait. I got this from deputy wheeler. Take it" Elle said pulling out a walkie talkie.

"What for?" Alex asked.

"If I hear anything I'll let you know."

"Thanks Elle" I said.

"I hope you both find what you're looking for." Elle said giving us each a hug.

Alex and I made our way down the street at a light jog. It was foggy and at some point became too foggy to see past. We backtracked and looked around, where else could they be?

"Lets see about getting this revolver fixed. It could be a huge help if there are more monsters around."

"Which there are. Also when did you see Judge Holloway?" I said.

"When I first got here. I visited City Hall to see if she knew what was going on with everything being closed." Alex said. I nodded. "Maybe we can get it fixed at the junkyard. Dad used to say Curtis would fix things over there."

 **I know I'm deviating a bit and I'm only doing that to keep it interesting. Rereading the game is not as fun as you would think. So I'll stick about 98% to the story line but I will throw some other stuff in there, mainly to do with Codi. Hope y'all are enjoying it so far.**

 **-CAPtainAmerica77**


	5. Oscar the Grouch

The bridge to the Junkyard was old and rickety. I was scared the thing would collapse any moment, it didn't. Filled to the brim with junk we had to walk around the whole building to get inside to Curtis. At least we didn't run into any monsters.

"Are you Curtis?" Alex asked.

"Mhmm." the man with a trucker hat and cigarette said not looking up from his work.

"Can you help us?" Alex asked.

"Maybe." Curtis said again not looking up from his work. Alex was too polite sometimes. I took the gun from Alex's hand and placed in front of Curtis.

"Can you fix this or not?" I asked with a tone that demanded an answer. He stopped his work and looked up at Alex and I.

"I remember you too. The Sheriff's kid and the Silent Hill girl."

"Alex. She's Codi." Alex said. Neither of us enjoyed what we were known as.

"Military man now I see."

"I'm pretty sure this gun is broken. What do you think?" I said diverting back to the matter at hand.

"I think Alex here must've stolen this from his daddy." Curtis said.

"Just tell me if you can fix it." I said

"Don't go barking orders at me princess. The only person that tells me what to do is my mama. God rest her soul" Curtis said standing up, he was still shorter than me."Pretty neglected. Damn shame how people mistreat nice things." he said admiring the revolver.

"Look what I really need is information. Have you seen my brother Joshua? Or her sister Natalie." Alex said.

"Talk to the mayor he knows everyone's business."

"Mayor Bartlett? Where is he?" Alex asked.

"Where he always is. In the cemetery digging up people's graves. You know there is something seriously wrong with that guy. You know like in the head." Curtis said still admiring the revolver.

"That's Mayor Bartlett?" we asked. The man from the cemetery couldn't be Mayor Bartlett, he never seemed unstable. Though this town never seemed the way it was now.

"Yep. No wonder all the streets are broken. No one gives a shit anymore."Curtis said. "Yeah I can fix it. May take a while though."

"Keep it." Alex said. "Its yours."

"Whats the catch?" Curtis asked.

"Consider it payment for your help" I said crossing my arms.

"Soldier's gotta have a gun. Princess needs something to keep herself safe." Curtis said handing each a gun. "Yep I like a fair trade." Curtis said sitting down.

"Hey can I ask one more question?" Alex said. "This town is crawling with all sorts of crazy shit and monsters. Why are you still running a repair shop?"

"Why do you think I'm carrying this thing around? What am I supposed to do, pack up and leave so somebody else can come in here and steal my stuff." Curtis said motioning to his gun. "You ain't too bright are you."

"You must not be either if you think someone will really come in here and steal your stuff. No one is out there to steal anything." I shot back.

"Whats with all the clock parts?" Alex asked.

"For fixing clocks. Haven't you noticed all the clocks in this town have stopped at exactly 2:06?" Curtis said. I could tell he didn't like me or Alex. And it was hard not to like Alex with how sweet he is.

"No sorry. The monsters haven't been kind enough to let us check the time." I said.

"Well then take a look around kids."

"Have you ever tried fixing them?" Alex asked giving me a look that said to calm down.

"Kid. I can fix just about anything you put in front of me. But I've never seen anything like this my entire life. Its like they all just stopped working for no reason." Curtis answered. "Its like something is causing it."

"What?"

"Well that's what you're trying to figure?"

"We're just trying to find our siblings." I said.

"Well you both might want to open your eyes to everything that's going on around here. It may led you to where you want to go." Curtis said in a smart Alec tone.

With that we left him. We took some ammo from the back room, Curtis didn't seem to care and we left the Oscar the Grouch to his junk.

"He was grouchy." I said.

"You were antagonizing him. But yeah he was."

"Sort of reminds me of Mr. Ryzuki." I said remembering our Chemistry teacher. "I think the only reason he didn't hate me was because of my chemistry puns."

"That's the only reason I didn't hate you." Alex joked with a smirk. I rolled my eyes and playfully bumped into him. He smiled and put his arm around me for the walk that was sadly cut short by a feral. I handled it quickly. Almost immediately after the crossing the rickety bridge again we got a message on the walkie.

"Elle. Elle are you there?" the voice said.

"Hello?" Alex said holding down the button to talk.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Alex Shepherd and Codi Martina." I said.

"Alex Shepherd. I thought you were-" static took over the radio. We tried to get a response but nothing worked.

"Alex do you hear that?" I asked slowly turning around hoping it wouldn't be a monster. It was. This monster had bright orange and emitted a black smoke.

Alex and I took a fighting stance next to each other. The smog puffed up its lungs and blew out a heavy toxic cloud of black smog. We jumped apart and dodged it. I used Alex's jacket sleeve to cover my mouth. Alex just moved farther back out of its reach. He caught the smogs attention and it puffed up its chest again. I took this opportunity and slashed its lungs. Soon the monster couldn't breathe and it collapsed to the ground with one last exhale.

"Good thinking babe." Alex said.

"Thanks. Here take your jacket back. You seem to need it more than I do." I said handing him his jacket.

"You still wear my old tee shirt?" Alex asked as he put his jacket on. I looked down, I hadn't even realized I was wearing it.

"I miss you. I guess I never realized how much I wore it though." I said fiddling with the hem at the bottom. The shirt was full of holes on the bottom from playing in the woods as kids. Other than that is was a simple Areosmith t-shirt.

"It looks cute on you." Alex said.

"Thanks." I said. Alex took my hand and we walked to the cemetery together careful to avoid any other monsters that may be lurking around.


	6. Hellish Hotel

We went back to the cemetery in hopes of being able to talk to Mayor Bartlett. Another Smog was in the graveyard but Alex took it out while I picked up some ammo hiding behind one of the graves next to a health drink. People leave the weirdest things in the weirdest places.

Mayor Bartlett was last seen digging up graves near the Bartlett Mausoleum. We went inside and the middle tomb had a sliding puzzle on it.

"You still like puzzles right?" Alex asked.

"Figuring out how to not like them is a puzzle itself." I said. The puzzle was fairly easy. Just leave the 2nd row to the left completely open to pull the lock down all the way. I completed the puzzle quickly and the coffin's lid popped open. Inside was a cracked wristwatch.

* * *

The last thing I remember was an overwhelming wave of pain before I keeled over. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times before getting something in my eye.

"Ow fuck." I said trying to blink it out. I looked at the ground and saw it was covered in ash. I only knew one town that was covered in ash from the coal fires still burning below it.

"Silent Hill."I said. I looked around and saw Alex still asleep, well hopefully asleep, next to me.

"Alex. Alex wake up." I said shaking him. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes. _Thank god he's not dead_ I thought with a sigh of relief.

"Codi? Where are we?" he asked sitting up.

"Simmons Street in Silent Hill." I said.

"Isn't this where-?"

"I grew up? Yeah." I finished for him.

"My dad told me never to come here. I guess I'm even more of a disappointment now." Alex said trying to mask his hurt with laughter.

"You're not a disappointment Alex. Not to me. I don't care what your parents say, you've turned out great." I said playing with the ends of his hair.

Alex kissed me which was enough of a thank you for me.

"You're welcome." I said giving him one last kiss before getting up.

At the end of the street on a ledge with a crashed fire truck we found an ax. Alex kept the steel pipe and I carried the ax. Alex's gun was in his pocket and mine was down the back of my pants. The knife was still in Alex's jacket.

In front of a car we saw Josh and Natalie sitting and whispering? Either that or crying.

"Josh!"

"Natalie!" I called.

They took off running and ran into The Grand Hotel. Before the coal fires started burning people used to visit the town in the summer and stay here. Since then it hadn't been taken care of and was run down. I'm surprised it hadn't fallen apart yet.

The front of the hotel was boarded up and through the pieces we could see Josh and Natalie hiding in there.

"Natalie are you and Josh okay?" I asked. She didn't look up. All I could see was the top of her blonde head, her face hidden between her knees.

"Codi hand me the ax. I'll cut the board down."

"Are you crazy what if you hit them?"

"What other choice do we have?" he was right. I handed him the ax and moved out of the way.

As soon as Alex moved towards the door Natalie and Alex ran deeper into the hotel. With the boards out of the way we followed them inside.

Dirty ceiling tiles, filthy floors and warping walls were all that remained of the once beautiful hotel. Josh and Natalie had ducked under some rubble and ran up the steps. Neither of us would fit so we hoped the elevator would work. Pressing the call button we waited, the elevator didn't come and the call button didn't light up.

"Power must be out." Alex said.

"Wait what's that over there?" I asked pointing to a what looked like a red tool box. Across the elevator shaft and to the tool box we went. On it was a key to maintenance.

"Now we can turn on the power." I said.

Checking out of the hotel was harder than it should have been thanks to a smog that showed up and tried to get us to extend our stay permanently. We declined with a chop and a slice before heading back outside.

Maintenance was to the left of the building past a chain link fence. Luckily there were no monsters, I was getting a little sick of them.

"I'm going to have to rewire it."

"You can do that right?" I asked.

"Yeah. Remember when we blew the breaker at your house that one time?"

"Yeah. That was the last time we were allowed to do our science fair project there again." I said.

 _We were in eighth grade and both agreed to work on our science fair project together. We were going to do a potato clock._

 _"Alex should we really be messing with the wiring?"I asked._

 _"It'll be fine. Beside I know how to rewire it if we break anything." he said._

 _Alex was wearing his Areosmith shirt with blue jeans and sneakers. I was dressed more for the occasion with a white lab coat borrowed from my mother with a gray t-shirt and jeans underneath it._

 _"Okay if you say so." I said getting ready for the worst._

 _Alex ended up knocking out the power to my house and I helped him rewire it before my parents even got home. Of course they noticed since we forgot to set all the clocks again but they were appreciative we fixed it._

"There we go." Alex said testing the power. All five light lit up blue signifying the power was online.

"Lets go catch a ride on the elevator." I said.


	7. Murderous Memories

The only button lit was the button for the fifth floor. Alex pressed it and we stood in the elevator.

"These are very boring without elevator music." I said.

"Are they fun with it?" Alex asked raising an eyebrow at me.

"Not really. Make some elevator music for me please?" I asked leaning on Alex a bit.

"Um sure. I can try." he said. He began to hum song random notes.

There was a loud noise that sounded like scraping then something like a claw or needle pushed through one wall almost hitting me.

"What the fuck?!" I yelled. I pulled out my gun and moved against the elevator doors. I shot the monster three times before it finally fell from the elevator shaft.

"Alex keep an eye out for more. I highly doubt there was just one." I said still standing ready.

BANG! I peeked out of the corner of my eye to see Alex had shot on right in the head. It dropped dead and fell down the shaft. He shot another one that was on my left and it dropped dead.

We thought we were safe when the elevator began to move down. _One of them must've cut the wire or something_ I thought. _That or this hotel is just giving out on us now_.

The emergency brakes kicked in and we crawled out through the top of the elevator onto the thrid floor just as the elevator plummeted.

"Really glad we weren't in there." I said looking down the shaft at the elevator that now lay in shambles.

"Yeah. How do we get out of here?" Alex asked. I looked down the hall and saw there was debris blocking our way. I also heard a voice singing?

"Alex do you hear that?" I whispered not wanting to draw any unwanted attention.

"Yeah. Lets see where its coming from." he said.

To our right was a painting of a woman covering herself with her hair. As I got closer I could feel cold air coming from behind it.

"I think there's something behind this door. Hand me the knife." I said.

Plunging the knife into the painting the breeze was stronger. I got a mouthful of dust and a hidden door right in front of me. I tried the door but it wouldn't open.

"Looks like we'll need a special key for it." Alex said.

We crawled through the rooms to find where the singing was coming from. Room 301 had a hole in it with the splinters looking like teeth. It was pretty creepy. I felt like anything could've reached out and grabbed me.

"Josh is that you? Natalie?" Alex asked into the hole staying some distance away.

"No one comes to visit anymore" a voice said. It was a woman she sounded older.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I wish I could remember." She said wistfully.

"Who left you here all alone? Everyone else is gone." Alex asked.

Don't blame them" she said. "Its hard to watch something die."

"I really can't. I'm looking for a little boy and girl. My brother and her sister. Have you seen them?" Alex explained.

"I've seen horrible things. Darkness. This is no place for a child." she said. _How can she see anything in that pitch black room?_

"I should go. I hope you find what you're looking for.'' Alex said backing away from the door.

"I understand. Come back if you change your mind."

"I didn't mean it like that." Alex said.

"Tell us what you need. We'll see what we can do." I said.

"So difficult to remember. The warm sunlight dancing on the water, the smell of cotton candy in the air, and the sound of wind blowing through the trees. Find them for me and I'll give you what you need." she told us.

"How we will know when we've found them?" I asked.

"Three small windows of better days. You'll know when you see them." she said not really answering my question.

"Ok we'll look around." Alex said.

"You have a kind voice." she said then laughed. When we left she began singing rock-a-by-baby without any words.

Together we checked all the rooms in the hall. There was a passage way that lead us into room 307 where there was a note thanking someone for fixing the atrium. Room 305 had a broken lock and room 306 had some writing on the wall.

"405 scares me. I left my ducky in there." Alex read.

"Poor duck being left in a scary room." I said.

"Yeah. Does this look like blood to you?" he asked.

"If it is blood I wouldn't be surprised." I replied not really wanting to find out for sure.

Using the ax we hacked out way into room 309 where there was a cabinet we used to climb up to the fourth floor. Giant bugs crawled out from some holes in the floor. I hated bugs and crushed them all without Alex even having to move.

405 was across the hall from where we exited. The room where someone left their ducky.

"This room isn't that scary at all." I said walking inside.

"No it isn't. Not compared to the rest of this hell hole." Alex agreed.

There was nothing of value in there but when we moved the cabinet there was a hole to room 404 which we couldn't enter from the hall. In 404's bathroom was toothpaste, aspirin, a comb and a post card.

"This must be one of the memories she's looking for." Alex said. He put the memory in his his jean pocket careful not to rip or bend it too much.

"One down two to go." I said.

We exited back into the hall and at the end there was a red glow. When we got over there we heard footsteps and dropped to hide behind the debris. A man wearing an apron made of skin and a pyramid shaped helmet dragged a huge sword behind him. He turned and looked directly at us, my breath hitched in my throat. This guy was huge and could probably swing that sword with no problem, even in this small space.

The man or monster, I don't know what he was, turned and walked back down the hallway away from us. Alex and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"What the hell was that thing?" I whispered not knowing if it was still there or not.

"I don't know. But I do know I don't want to run into it again."


	8. Leap of Faith

Thanks to swarm of bugs bursting through the door to our left we were able to get to room 408 with only minor difficulties. We could only access the bathroom but we did find the serum Dr. Fitch was reportedly working on.

Hacking our way through the stairwell we made it upstairs to see Josh and Natalie. As soon as they saw us they ran.

"Josh! Natalie wait!" I called after them.

"Why do they keep running?" Alex asked aloud.

"It is weird. I mean they used to bug us all the time to play with them." I answered.

There was a shift of debris to our right and one of the things that attacked us in the elevators crawled out.

"You've got to be shitting me." Alex said backing up with me.

"You handled them pretty well in the elevator I'm sure we can handle one more." I said.

When the needler tried to slash at me I dodged and Alex knocked down its other leg. Once it was on the ground I plunged my ax into its head and wiggled it around making sure it was dead.

"Be on the lookout for more of those things. I have a feeling this hotel is crawling with them."Alex said.

"Please tell me you didn't use crawling because-"

"No I wasn't trying to make a pun. Those are your things." Alex cut me off with a smile. I smiled back, I love his smile. It was one thing I missed most while in New York.

There were two more needlers on that floor which we took care of in a similar way. Knocking out the legs and bashing in the skull. Now the floor smelled like blood and viscera mixed with decay and mold.

Room 508 contained another note. This time it was about a woman creeping towards the ballroom and someone's mental health condition. Either way none of these notes sounded good. A hole in room 505 lead us to another one of the woman's memories.

"Just one more." Alex said.

"She better have good information with all the monsters we've had to fight." I said pulling my hair back into a pony tail. The majority of it was blonde but I had kept the ends red constantly wasting money on hair dye rather than wasting it on something else.

The last memory was in room 503 and to get there we had to drop down a floor crawl through about three more holes than I would have likes and fight more monsters than I would have liked, which is none. We did learn that the nurses who twitched and convulsed while they walked were attracted to light and if we were silent and turned our lights and radio off we could sneak past them.

"Is this what you wanted?" Alex asked holding the postcards out to the woman behind the door.

"Thank you." she said taking them and in return handing us a small key. We tried to speak to her once more but it seemed like she had disappeared.

"Think this key will let us into that hidden room by the elevator?" I asked holding up the key.

"Its worth a shot." Alex said.

We back tracked all the way to room 306, otherwise known as the hidden room. The key fit perfectly. Inside Josh and Natalie stood facing us, emotionless.

"Josh? Natalie?" Alex asked. We tried to jump over to them but missed and clung onto the boards for dear life.

"Josh help me." Alex said. Josh just looked at him.

"Come on Nat. Don't leave your big sister hanging." I said hoping Natalie would help me. She didn't.

Alex and I both lost our grip and fell two floors down into the ballroom. When I looked back up through the holes I couldn't see Josh or Natalie.

Alex groaned and got up. I just laid there in shock of my sister's actions.

"Are you okay?" Josh asked. "Anything broken? Can you stand?" he asked helping me up.

"No I'm fine. Are you okay?" I asked checking him for any visible scrapes.

"No I'm fine too. Why did they just let us fall?"

"I don't know. Seems a bit out of character for both of them. My main goal is to keep them safe from whatever they're constantly running from." I said. Alex nodded and we picked up some ammo we found lying around the ball room.

We tried to get into the greenhouse but the doors were locked. We tried back tracking. Those doors were locked too.

"We're trap-"

An air raid siren went off. My mother warned me that sirens in this town was bad. I don't remember why.

The floor, walls and ceiling began to flake away into reveal dingy, rusty metals that looked like they were blood stained. When the siren was done we heard the doors to the greenhouse click. They had been unlocked.

We opened them and stepped inside.


	9. Gorey Greenhouse

"Mayor Bartlett? Mayor Bartlett!" Alex said as we ran towards the supposedly crazy mayor.

"Mayor Bartlett we need to talk to you." I said.

"Yeah well make an appointment in my office." he said slurring some words. I looked down, he had an alcohol bottle in his hands. _He's drunk_ I thought.

"Do you remember me? My dad was the sheriff." Alex said.

"Or me. My father was your political adviser for years." I said.

"Who Adam Shepherd? Ha, that idiot couldn't protect a doughnut shop. And Mathew Martina? He could barely advise a fish to swim. Just leave me alone." Mayor Bartlett said.

"What the hell's happened to Shepherd's Glen? You're the mayor. These people are your responsibility." Alex inquired.

"Now you listen to me you little asshole. I did everything I could to protect those people. But you can't stop what's already been started!" the Mayor yelled. "What else do you want from me?"

"What about your son? Don't you want to protect him?" I asked.

"My boy. I didn't do much right with him, but I did buy him some nice things. Remember Joey? Remember that nice present I got you?" It was as if the Mayor was speaking to his son Joey. Maybe he really has lost it.

"I'm looking for my brother Joshua and her sister Natalie. I know they used to friends with your son. Have you seen any of them?" Alex asked.

"Joey? Uh, Joey doesn't want to play with you. Why do you want to know about him?" Bartlett asked.

"Because I thought he, Joshua and Natalie might be together. Do you know where they are? Maybe you could take me to them." I suggested.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, you pair of freaks! Can't you take a hint and get the hell away from me?! I just want to stay here and sleep in the garden. Oh, Joey loves his little garden..." the mayor trailed off. He took a long drink from the bottle.

Alex pulled out the watch we got in the mausoleum and handed it to the mayor.

"What the hell is this?" the mayor asked.

"It belongs to your son, doesn't it? Where is he?" Alex asked done playing games.

"Joey?"

"Yes Joey. He, Natalie and Joshua were friends. I need to find him." I said tired of interrogating our drunk mayor. I don't know how police officers do it, I've only spoken to him for 2 minutes and already I want to stop.

"You shouldn't have come back Alex. You too Codi. Times are bad...The people don't trust me anymore. I can't protect them." Bartlett said and threw the watch aside.

"Protect them from what? What did you do?" Alex asked.

"Something has come... and taken everyone away. You can't stop them. They'll get you too." the mayor said.

"Who's taking them? What are you talking about?" I demanded an answer.

"Where's..MY...Brother and Natalie?" Alex asked grabbing the mayor's shoulders. The mayor shoved him off and stumbled away slowly.

"Bastard. You can't save them."The room began to shake. "Wh-What?"

Meat sacks lowered from the ceiling and the red meat sack in the center of the room began to move towards the ceiling.

"What is all this? What did you do?!" I yelled grabbing onto Alex.

"Jesus Christ." Alex said as the red meat sack turned out to be the tail of a huge monster. Black slime dripped and bubbled in the monsters mouth. Its arms were long and boney.

"Show mercy on me. I live to serve you. Please protect me in this moment." The mayor pleaded just before the monster crushed him.

Before the monster swung at us we dodged and I hit a meat sack. It didn't like that and looked at me like it wanted to kill again.

"Alex! Hit the meat sacks. That's its weakness!" I called across the room before dodging another attack.

Across the room Alex was slicing the meat sack until it burst open and the monster roared in pain. He continued to do that while I distracted the monster. When all the meat sacks were gone the monster dropped to the floor propping itself up on its arms.

I pulled out my gun and fired at its head. It swung and grabbed Alex. I shot it again, it released him. When the monster when to pummel us into the ground we dodged and its hand was stuck. We took out its arms and I slammed my ax into its skull. It lurched upwards before collapsing back to the ground and sinking into the hole it came out of.

I looked over at Alex and smiled before I was over come by a wave of exhaustion.

 **So how am I doing? I'm really concerned this is either too jumpy or too drawn out? I'd really love some feedback on the fighting too and Codi. Thanks for your support I can't believe I've posted 9 chapter and written them all in under 12 hours. That must be a record.**

 **-CAPtainAmerica77**


	10. Stuck in the Station

I woke up in a cell and looked around. I was alone. Peering through the bars I could see Alex lying in the cell opposite of me.

"Alex! Alex wake up!" I yelled at him. Lucky for me he's a light sleeper and woke up with just me yelling.

"Codi! What happened? Last thing I remember we beat that monster in the hotel garden," Alex said.

"Wish I could be more helpful but that's all I remember. I think we're back at the police station in Shepherd's Glen," I said. "Is there a way out over by you?"

"Not that I can see. I'll look around more," Alex said.

The longer we sat in that cell the more I felt sick to my stomach. I feeling trapped. At some point I just couldn't take it anymore I threw up in the corner. The twin doors opened and large man in uniform walked in.

"Deputy Wheeler," Alex said.

"Well, well. Back in the world of the living." Wheeler said pointing a shotgun at Alex. I guess he thinks Alex is the most dangerous, he's not wrong.

"How did we get here?" I asked covering my nose to avoid the smell of the vomit.

"I put you guys here. I haven't quite made up my mind about you two yet." he said.

"Wheeler, c'mon you know me. Let me out!" Alex demanded.

"You won't be going anywhere until I get some answers. Start talking!"

" I don't know. Last thing I remember we were in a greenhouse talking to Mayor Bartlett." I jumped in.

"Sam Bartlett? That lunatic? Where is he? I got a couple questions I'd like to ask him about what's been going on around him." Wheeler said in disbelief. Like I'd lie trapped in a room with my own vomit.

Alex tried lying about him being passed out drunk. Wheeler saw right through that.

"Well you're not going to be able to ask him anything. He's dead." Alex said now telling the truth. He really is a terrible liar.

"Dead? Shit. You better start telling me what you're up to Alex. I wanna know right now!" Wheeler demanded waving the gun around near Alex's face.

"I'm just trying to find my brother and her sister Natalie, okay? I thought the mayor might know something. His son is missing too."Alex explained.

"A lot of people are missing, but that doesn't give you the right to kill a man."

"We didn't kill anybody!" I yelled.

"Then what happened to mayor Bartlett?" Wheeler asked smugly thinking he had his smoking gun.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," I said sitting down on the bed in my cell. I already had monster blood on me, dust from the bed wouldn't hurt.

"Young lady I can believe a lot. You just have to trust me."

"It was some kind of creature, but worse than the others. It came to life out of the goddamn tree! That's what killed him. And that's the truth I swear," Alex said.

"We should get moving. I'm not sure its safe here anymore follow me," Wheeler said opening Alex's cell and then mine.

We ran through the police station halls to the chief's office. We ran into some monsters with saws for head that split apart down the middle. Wheeler held them off as we ran. With the door locked we picked up some supplies lying around the office.

"Alex! Codi! Wheeler! Come in. I'm on my way to the sheriff's station. Something's after me!" we heard Elle on the radio.

"Elle, head to the parking lot behind the station. We'll meet you there," Alex responded back to her.

"Okay, clear a path through the lobby and break down the barricaded. I'll cover you. Okay?" Wheeler told us. We nodded and took out our weapons.

A monster separated us from Wheeler as it crashed through the ceiling. We ran into five of those saw monsters in the lobby. You knew they were about to charge when they heads split and the crouched. The police station was in bad shape but at least there was still some ammo lying around. On the bad side we had to take out more monsters to get to it.

By the time we reached the garage and killed the schism, named after the great schism of 1043,there was still no sign of wheeler. Alex opened up the locker that contained some health drinks and ammo and then opened the garage door.

There was Elle just as she said she'd be. She was sitting in a police car when the same monster that separated us from Wheeler jumped in front of her and flipped her car. Then the monster charged at us.

I was faster than Alex so I dodged its attacks and kept the monster busy while Alex attacked its most vulnerable side. The female side. I honestly just thought that side was for ballet or something.

With the monster dead we helped Elle out of the car. Schisms were closing in from all sides.

"Quick the sewers, we'll be safer there." Alex said.

Elle climbed down first, then me and finally Alex who shut the manhole just before a Schism could get him.


	11. Sickening Sewers

The sewers smelled worse than anyone could have imagined.

"And I thought my vomit smelled bad." I said pinching my nose.

Elle was leaning against one of the sewer gates panting.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked us. I nodded so did Elle.

"Its getting worse guys," Elle said. "The whole town is falling apart, and there's nothing we can do about it."

Elle pulled out some flyers she never hung and flung them towards Alex and I.

"We're never going to find them,"Elle said defeat echoing in her voice. Alex picked up one of the flyers it, was a flyer for Elle's sister Nora.

"Your sister. I didn't know," he said.

"She vanished when all of this started."

"Your mom told me things had changed. I guess I didn't realize," Alex said not finishing his sentence.

"We'll find her, okay Elle? All of this has to be connected and when we find Natalie and Josh, we'll find Nora too." I said reaching out to help Elle off the ground.

The three of us made our way down the sewer. I with the ax, Alex with the steel pipe and we gave Elle the knife in case she needed to use it. We came upon a gate and Alex held it open while Elle and I ducked under it. Using the valve on the other side we did the same for Alex.

We stepped down into some water, disgusting sewer water, about 30 feet past the gate. One of those lurkers was in there. It lunged at me and I tried to dodge it but I was too slow. It scratched my arm. Deep. I winced and with all my might swung my ax down on its head. I kept swinging through the pain until Alex said,

"Codi... It's dead. You can stop."

I looked at Alex and then back at the monster there was the head floating in pieces all around me. Its blood and brains were spattered all over my torso.

"You okay?" Alex asked placing a hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah lets just move on." I said wanting to avoid the subject.

The sewers were pretty generous with its items. Ammo, health drinks, health kits, and a map. When the area was clear the three of us moved into a hidden corner to patch up my arm.

"Elle I can't really see it well. Can you patch it up?" I asked.

"Yeah sure." Elle said. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal a huge gash starting at my shoulder and ending at my forearm.

"Codi that looks bad. Are you sure you can continue?" Alex asked.

"Yes!" I yelled. "I mean yes. I have to. Sorry I didn't mean to yell." I avoided Alex's gaze. _Come on Codi keep it together. You need to find Natalie_ I thought.

"Okay. Just let me know if you need to stop," Alex said dropping the subject. I knew we would continue it further just not with Elle here.

Once we drained the bilge tank Alex and I went down first to make sure there were no lurkers there. There weren't any. So far the sewers seemed to be one of the safest places in Shepherd's dropped down and climbed up multiple ledges until Alex was separated from Elle and I.

"Alex we can open another gate. Just go back the way we came," Elle said after we both tried to turn the valve.

"You two be careful," Alex said. He ran off and it was just Elle and I.

"What made you come back here?" Elle asked sitting down against the wall.

"I needed to work on my novel. I wasn't getting anything done in the city. Beside I missed Alex," I said.

"Is that the only reason why?"

"No. In truth I was worried. I hadn't heard from Alex for almost a year and I stopped getting letters from Natalie. She aways insisted on writing letters rather than email, said they were more personal. When they suddenly stopped I thought she was just busy, I mean she is in middle school. But then months went by and no contact at all.

" I was originally just coming back to write my book but now I'm back to find Natalie. And help Alex find Josh of course. Nora too, it seems like everyone we know is gone." I said sliding down the wall.

"We'll find them Codi. Don't worry," Elle said. I smiled a 'thank you' at her.

"Hey guys, can you open the gate please?" Alex asked jogging up to the gate. Elle and I opened the gate and Alex crawled under.

"Are you hurt?" I asked him.

"No I'm fine. Hows your arm doing?"

"Fine, its fine."

"We should try and make it to the main drain room. It looks like the best way out," Elle said analyzing the map. Alex and I agreed and we headed in that direction.

The Sluice drain was held a needler for us and using Elle as a distraction we knocked out its legs and killed it from behind. The closer we got to the main drain the worse it smelled, at one point I thought I would pass out from it. That or vomit what little I had in my stomach.

The Main Drain chamber was circular and had multiple pillars in it, honestly a bit too decorative for the sewers. Once again Alex held open the gate for Elle and I, but I refused to go through.

"Codi we won't get separated again, I promise."

"You can't promise that Alex. I don't want to risk it."

"We need to take some risks. Do you really want to leave Elle alone?"

"I'm right here you know," Elle said from behind the gate.

"Please just do it for me," Alex said.

"Fine," I said and Alex opened the gate for us.

I was right, we were going to be separated again since the gate couldn't be open. I gave Alex a look that said 'I told you so'.

"We'll go up ahead and see if there's a way to open the gate." Elle and I ran down the sewers when I heard the sounds of needler's legs on the grates.

"Elle you go ahead, Alex is in trouble." Elle nodded and jogged on wards. I ran back to Alex to see him surrounded by three needlers.

"My mother called. She said she'd like her sewing kit back." I called. The needlers looked me before they turned back to Alex. _Dammit I was hoping to lure them away but I guess they can see through that even without their eyes._

I pulled out my gun and cocked it back. I shot one in the back and that seemed to get its attention. It crawled over to me and tried to stick me with one of its legs. The leg got caught in the gate and I took the clear shot to its face. Meanwhile Alex took out the rest of the Needlers and I thought we were safe.

I heard heavy foot steps coming from behind me and saw that thing from the police station. Siam was what Elle called it I think. It couldn't have been the same one though, we killed it. I rolled to the right and it crashed through the gate.

Alex didn't doge it in time and got knocked to the ground. I picked my ax up and ran towards its back. I hacked away it sending blood flying all over my already covered face. It finally let out one last roar before dropping to the ground. This time I stopped hacking away at it rather than continue.

"Codi. We need to talk about this. What's wrong? You keep going over board with it?" Alex said coming over to me.

"Its just-" we heard a scream. It was Elle.

We ran down the sewer and found a radio in a trail of blood.

"Where's Elle? Oh my god, this is her radio. Do you think this blood is hers?" Alex asked.

"Its not mine. It looks like she struggled or sounded like it at least. They must have dragged her who ever took her." I pointed at the blood and we followed it up the ladder and out the sewers.

"Thank god. I thought I was going to die from the smell," I said.


	12. The Doctor is in

The ladder lead us onto the street in front of Alex's house.

"Lets go get your face cleaned up," Alex said.

When we tried to go inside we couldn't, there were barbed wires blocking our way. _What is going on with this town?_

"I guess we won't get you cleaned up," Alex said.

"Its fine. Besides we need to find Elle. If that was her blood she lost a lot of it."

We made our way down Carson Street when Wheeler called.

"Alex! Codi! Come in are you there?" Wheeler asked through the crackling of the radio.

"Wheeler? Are you alright?" Alex asked.

"Hey I've been better, but I'm okay. Did you find Elle?"

"We did. But we got separated, we're looking for her now." I said.

"I'm just now leaving the station to find Fitch. Look, we need to stick together! Meet me at his office, maybe he knows where Elle is."

"OK. We'll meet you there."

Near the intersection of Carson and Main street two ferals attacked us. We each took one down and continued onto main street where there were more monsters waiting for us. Luckily we both got through without injury.

"Hang on. There was a door that was boarded up in the town hall. I want to check it out quick," said Alex. Together we made into the town hall Alex hacked down the boards in front of the door. Surprisingly he didn't do too much damage to the door. Inside was a painting of Alex's great great grandfather, the founders named the town after him.

"Why isn't this hung up?" Alex asked.

"I don't know. Alex I feel like there's something big going on here and it all has to do with your family."

"Then why would the whole town be brought into it?"

"I don't know. But I think we should hurry and find Elle," I said.

"Okay. Hey what's that behind the bookshelf?" I looked over and saw some white sticking out from behind the shelf. It looked like paper. We moved the shelf out of the way, it was a child's drawing.

The drawing depicted someone laying on a bed with their limbs ripped off and bleeding. It seemed a little dark for a child's drawing. When I was a kid the scariest thing I drew was a spider at Halloween.

Outside the Town Hall we made it onto Main Street once more. In the distance by the fire station was a figure running and looking around scared. That figure was followed by a trail of blood.

"Excuse me. Sir? Hey you.."

"Doctor Fitch?" I asked.

"What do you want?" Fitch asked panicked with a scalpel in his hand.

"Are you alright?" Alex asked. Looking at his sleeves they seemed to be red around the edges and that he was bleeding on his upper fore arm. _Could the blood be his?_

"Doctor? Whose blood is that? What have you done?" I asked approaching Fitch carefully. There was no telling how much sense he had left in him.

"Stay away from me!" Fitch sputtered and ran off into his office. Alex and I followed suit.

"No sign of Wheeler. Should we go after him?"

"We need to find Elle and see what Fitch is up to." That was enough of a yes for me. Alex held the door open for me and we went inside.

The office was covered in a heavy layer of dust, almost like someone hadn't been in there for a check up in a while. The TV was on the fritz and behind the receptionist's desk papers were scattered every where. The only door that was open in the office was the last door on the right. Inside it looked like any medical exam room minus the little girl's dresser.

" Why would Doctor Fitch put all this in here?" Alex asked aloud.

"I don't know. But if his goal was to creep out patients those dolls are doing the trick." I said nodding over to the shelf full of dolls. Their eyes seemed to follow you where ever you went.

On the dresser there was a black case, it was locked. The only other thing in this room was a picture of Scarlet Fitch in her bedroom with all her dolls.

"I remember Scarlet. Natalie and her used to be in the same class in elementary school. She used to come over and play dolls every Tuesday, then she suddenly stopped. Natalie said she stopped coming to class too."

There wasn't anything else to do in the room so we exited and came into contact with five of those nurses. They all seemed to crowd around the light, we turned our lights off to avoid them following us.

I readied my ax for a heavy swing and brought it down splitting her skull in two. The other nurses tried to attack us but we silently moved back into the darkness. Not being able to sense us the nurses went back to the light and froze with the occasional twitch here and there. For every nurse we repeated that process. Sometimes Alex would hit them with the pipe and sometimes I would split their skulls open.

With all the nurses dead we could see the first room, across the hall from the receptionist desk, was now open. Inside was a note from a Dr. Slater saying how he was disappointed that Fitch missed their appointment for the third time. There was also some more of that special serum and a key.

The key opened the case and inside was a doll.

"Creepy."

"That's Scarlet's doll," I said. "Her dad had it made to look like her."

The hair seemed to recede speedily back into the skull and the doll became worn and dull. One eye disappeared and the dress was ripped at the hem. I got very dizzy and heard a loud noise similar to the mosquito nose, but much worse. I blacked out again.


	13. Descending Further into Hell and Trouble

The ladder lead us onto the street in front of Alex's house.

"Lets go get your face cleaned up," Alex said.

When we tried to go inside we couldn't, there were barbed wires blocking our way. _What is going on with this town?_

"I guess we won't get you cleaned up," Alex said.

"Its fine. Besides we need to find Elle. If that was her blood she lost a lot of it."

We made our way down Carson Street when Wheeler called.

"Alex! Codi! Come in are you there?" Wheeler asked through the crackling of the radio.

"Wheeler? Are you alright?" Alex asked.

"Hey I've been better, but I'm okay. Did you find Elle?"

"We did. But we got separated, we're looking for her now." I said.

"I'm just now leaving the station to find Fitch. Look, we need to stick together! Meet me at his office, maybe he knows where Elle is."

"OK. We'll meet you there."

Near the intersection of Carson and Main street two ferals attacked us. We each took one down and continued onto main street where there were more monsters waiting for us. Luckily we both got through without injury.

"Hang on. There was a door that was boarded up in the town hall. I want to check it out quick," said Alex. Together we made into the town hall Alex hacked down the boards in front of the door. Surprisingly he didn't do too much damage to the door. Inside was a painting of Alex's great great grandfather, the founders named the town after him.

"Why isn't this hung up?" Alex asked.

"I don't know. Alex I feel like there's something big going on here and it all has to do with your family."

"Then why would the whole town be brought into it?"

"I don't know. But I think we should hurry and find Elle," I said.

"Okay. Hey what's that behind the bookshelf?" I looked over and saw some white sticking out from behind the shelf. It looked like paper. We moved the shelf out of the way, it was a child's drawing.

The drawing depicted someone laying on a bed with their limbs ripped off and bleeding. It seemed a little dark for a child's drawing. When I was a kid the scariest thing I drew was a spider at Halloween.

Outside the Town Hall we made it onto Main Street once more. In the distance by the fire station was a figure running and looking around scared. That figure was followed by a trail of blood.

"Excuse me. Sir? Hey you.."

"Doctor Fitch?" I asked.

"What do you want?" Fitch asked panicked with a scalpel in his hand.

"Are you alright?" Alex asked. Looking at his sleeves they seemed to be red around the edges and that he was bleeding on his upper fore arm. _Could the blood be his?_

"Doctor? Whose blood is that? What have you done?" I asked approaching Fitch carefully. There was no telling how much sense he had left in him.

"Stay away from me!" Fitch sputtered and ran off into his office. Alex and I followed suit.

"No sign of Wheeler. Should we go after him?"

"We need to find Elle and see what Fitch is up to." That was enough of a yes for me. Alex held the door open for me and we went inside.

The office was covered in a heavy layer of dust, almost like someone hadn't been in there for a check up in a while. The TV was on the fritz and behind the receptionist's desk papers were scattered every where. The only door that was open in the office was the last door on the right. Inside it looked like any medical exam room minus the little girl's dresser.

" Why would Doctor Fitch put all this in here?" Alex asked aloud.

"I don't know. But if his goal was to creep out patients those dolls are doing the trick." I said nodding over to the shelf full of dolls. Their eyes seemed to follow you where ever you went.

On the dresser there was a black case, it was locked. The only other thing in this room was a picture of Scarlet Fitch in her bedroom with all her dolls.

"I remember Scarlet. Natalie and her used to be in the same class in elementary school. She used to come over and play dolls every Tuesday, then she suddenly stopped. Natalie said she stopped coming to class too."

There wasn't anything else to do in the room so we exited and came into contact with five of those nurses. They all seemed to crowd around the light, we turned our lights off to avoid them following us.

I readied my ax for a heavy swing and brought it down splitting her skull in two. The other nurses tried to attack us but we silently moved back into the darkness. Not being able to sense us the nurses went back to the light and froze with the occasional twitch here and there. For every nurse we repeated that process. Sometimes Alex would hit them with the pipe and sometimes I would split their skulls open.

With all the nurses dead we could see the first room, across the hall from the receptionist desk, was now open. Inside was a note from a Dr. Slater saying how he was disappointed that Fitch missed their appointment for the third time. There was also some more of that special serum and a key.

The key opened the case and inside was a doll.

"Creepy."

"That's Scarlet's doll," I said. "Her dad had it made to look like her."

The hair seemed to recede speedily back into the skull and the doll became worn and dull. One eye disappeared and the dress was ripped at the hem. I got very dizzy and heard a loud noise similar to the mosquito nose, but much worse. I blacked out again.


	14. Scary Scarlet

The doll shrieked at us. Scarlet shrieked at us.

"Scarlet?" I asked hoping to god that thing wasn't her. The doll moved towards us like a puppet on strings. It reached out to grab me. I dropped my ax and dodged. This had to be scarlet. I backed into a corner and curled into a ball not wanting to accept the truth.

"No..." I whispered. " Not Scarlet. Who did this to you?"

"Take out its legs!" Alex yelled as he came from behind her and hit her in the back of her knees.

"I can't! Its Scarlet, I can't do this to her!" I cried hiding my face in my knees.

Alex continued to beat the porcelain armor off of Scarlet leaving her vulnerable to his attacks.

"Codi that isn't Scarlet anymore! Scarlet was a little girl not a monster who would attack you or her father! You need to put her out of her misery!" Alex yelled dodging another one of Scarlet's attacks.

He was right. Even though that was once Scarlet it wasn't anymore. The Scarlet I knew couldn't even hurt a fly, she was scared of butterflies, and most of all she was a little girl. This thing wasn't a little girl but a monster that needed to die.

I grabbed my ax from the floor. I ran towards the monster who I couldn't even call Scarlet and hit the back of her knees knocking her onto the ground.

Alex beat her head in with his pipe with I lodged my ax into her back and began to pry away at it. She shot up into the air and let out an ear piercing scream before collapsing onto the ground. It was over, or so I thought.

The monster got on all fours in an inhuman way and rotated her head so she was like a spider. It jumped around the room and tried to attack us. It climbed the walls and tried to drop onto us from the ceiling. We rolled out of the way and began to attack her. It sprung back up. And continued to jump around the room.

The last time it tried to drop on us it landed on me knocking me down. I swung my ax up and put it in the monster's mouth so it couldn't bite me.

"Alex finish her!" I yelled.

"No what if I hit you?!"

"Alex you need to take the risk! You said so yourself we'll need to take risks in order to get Josh and Natalie. Now do it!" I yelled.

Alex lifted the pipe high over his head and plunged it into her open back. The monster screamed and shot its blood all over. It seems like blood just likes me today. Alex pried out the pipe and with it came a key.

I pushed the body off me with Alex's help and stood up, but not for very long. The blood was like quicksand and pulled both Alex and I down into it until we couldn't see light. I closed my eyes and when I opened them a second later we were back in Doctor Fitch's office.

Almost immediately Alex rolled over and vomited. I rubbed his back and handed him a near by paper towel.

"Thanks," he said wiping his mouth.

"You're my boyfriend I have to take care of you." I smiled. I looked behind Alex and saw Scarlet's doll. I picked it up and held it looking into its eyes. "Poor Scarlet, she didn't deserve what happened to her. She was so sweet..."

"I'm sorry Codi. You did the right thing killing that monster." Alex said putting an arm around my shoulder.

"Thanks Alex. You're the best you know that right?"

"Yeah. I just like hearing you say it. Wait I've seen this symbol before," Alex said picking up the key. "Yeah. I remember seeing it in the town hall when I was a kid...I can't remember where in the building though..."

"I remember it too. One time I was there with my dad, I think it's in the room with all the portraits of the founders..."

"All of the founders except my great great grandfather."

"Lets go check it out. Maybe this key will give us more answers than questions," I said taking Scarlet's doll with me. She at least deserved to have someone take care of her doll for her.


	15. Attic Adventure

The symbol was on an altar in the room with all the founders, minus one. The keyhole was in the middle of the altar and when we turned the key what I always thought was a design flaw turned out to be a secret door. The door lead us under the town hall to a room with more nurses. We took them out one by one by leading them through the small passage.

By the lamp there was a statue matching the symbol on the key and the altar. When we examined it the front panel opened up to reveal a special dagger. Alex took it out and examined it.

"Wait a minute is this...?" he asked not finishing his sentence.

"What is it Alex?"

"This dagger I've seen it somewhere before. I think I saw it in my dad's secret room but as a door handle," he answered.

"I think we need to head back to your house and check it out. But how will we get in the front door is blocked by barbed wires?"

"We can always try the back door," Alex suggested. I mentally slapped myself for not thinking of that.

"But we have to go through the cemetery again and we can't get there anymore," I reasoned.

"There must be another way to get to the cemetery."

The two of us searched high and low in the room for a door but couldn't find one. We couldn't even find a key hole, just a slit in the wall.

"Wait I think I saw this dagger as a door handle. What if the door can only be opened with the dagger? What if the keyhole is that slit in the wall and this is the key?"

"Of course. That way only people who knew about it could enter the cemetery the other way. Lets try it," I suggested.

When we put the dagger in the slit and turned it the door clicked. Alex pushed on the wall and would you know it there was a secret passage. To where I don't know for sure but hopefully the cemetery.

We followed the passage down a countless number of twists and turns. Eventually we were lead to multiple dead ends and one ladder out of the passage. When we climbed the ladder we ended up in the Fitch mausoleum with 3 coffins and one syringe of the serum. I feel like that serum will come in handy at some point.

"OK that was interesting. Lets head back to my house. See what was in my Dad's secret room all those years." I nodded in agreement with Alex.

We left the mausoleum and traversed our way through the cemetery. Through the Founder's row, the family crypts, and the East garden we finally made it out. But not before having to avoid a smog, we were both too tired to even fight it.

Once inside Alex's house we went to the basement to see only a small amount of water remained. Alex and I squeezed through the hole in the wall and went to the door.

"Ready?" I asked. Alex responded by putting the dagger in the slot and opening the door.

Inside the room was a table with different carving knives and what looked like a shower with blood pooling the center. On the carving table was a key, the key to the attic.

Once we had used the key to enter the attic we looked around, nothing seemed to be out of place for an attic. Except the empty bookshelf on the one wall. When I walked over to it I could feel a slight draft from it.

"Alex I think there's a room behind this bookshelf, help me move it." Together we pushed the bookshelf out of the way and what do you know, I was right. Alex pushed open the door and froze.

"Alex are you alright? Sweetheart? Can you answer me?" No response. "Alex?"

"What?" he asked coming out of his trance.

"You zoned out for a second. What happened?" I asked.

"I just saw something. It was like a memory. Dad gave Josh this ring and said never to show it to me. But the thing was I don't remember that ever happening." Alex looked slightly shaken, I pulled him into a hug in hopes to comfort him. He stood there for a second but then hugged me back.

"Alex I don't know what's going on but I know we'll get through this. We'll find Josh and Natalie and everyone else. It'll all be okay," I told Alex.

"Thanks Codi. I know we will, I just want to be able to keep you safe at the same time. And having these memories that aren't mine are terrifying."

"They must be. But don't worry, you'll be fine." I smiled up at Alex and he sighed and smiled down at me.

"I'm so lucky to be in love with you." He cupped my face and gave me a quick kiss before we returned to the mission at hand.

By the window was a large tapestry with the Shepherd family crest. Under it was a desk with a book, the book was locked with a moving puzzle.

"Codi, if you would please? You're better at them than me," Alex said stepping aside so I could do the puzzle.

"It would be my honour to do it," I said. I slid the pieces around until I had formed the picture of the family crest and heard a click. "Done."

Inside the book was a letter from Alex's father and a map of Silent Hill. _I just knew Silent Hill had to be a part of it_ I thought.

"Codi this is-"

"Where I was born. Yeah, I think we need to go to Silent Hill. What does the letter say?"

"It reads: 'I have failed and they know it. They blame me. They should. I swore to protect this town, but I can't. The streets decay before our eyes. The curse we always feared has come upon us. Worse yet, the Order has returned, kidnapping and killing with impunity. Brainwashing those they take in an effort to rebuild their flock. Whether they want to punish us for the exodus of our forefathers- or simply breathe new life into the old ways, I don't know. But they're taken our people. The only think left to face is the source of this evil, to fight and pray that some hopes can be restored. My sole consolation is that I've finally opened my eyes to the evil in Silent Hill.' What evil is he talking about?"

" I don't know. There may be something at my house about it. When we moved it was very sudden and my parents never really told me why. Eventually I just dropped the subject,"I said. "Your mom may know something too."

"Lets go ask her," Alex said. We walked down the steps and saw Mrs. Lillian still sitting in her rocking chair staring out the window.

"Listen to me, Mom. Start telling us everything you know about this!" Alex demanded holding the letter in front of his mother.

"I don't know what this is," she responded.

"STOP LYING! I'M TIRED OF IT! I know all about Silent Hill," Alex yelled.

"You don't know anything about Silent Hill!"

"I do Mrs. Lillian. I grew up there," I said stepping forward. Mrs. Lillian blinked a couple of times and looked at the floor.

"I know Dad went there. He went to go fight something. Did he go to get Joshua? Is that where Josh is? God dammit, tell me!" Alex said.

"Oh Alex, I'm so sorry."

"Stop pretending you care about me and start telling me what's going on." Alex was upset. "Joshua is the only one you ever cared about, and I can help him if you tell me the truth!"

"Mrs. Lillian, my sister is in trouble too please." I looked at Mrs. Lillian and she just seemed to be debating something in her mind.

Someone in a hazmat suit grabbed Mrs. Lillian, then Alex and then me from behind. The guys knocked Alex and I out, While we were fading in and out of consciousness we saw them take Mrs. Lillian out of the house.

The sirens went off again and the house began to change, it began to peel away into a nightmare. Alex and I tried to open the door but we were trapped.


	16. Hell House

"There has to be a way out right?" I thought aloud. "What about the back door?"

"The door to the basement is locked. There are bars in front of it," Alex answered. I looked up at him from the floor and could see some blood running down the side of his face.

"Alex you're bleeding, let me fix it." I pulled a small first aid kit we had picked up out of my pocket. Alex hissed in pain when I used an alcohol wipe to prevent infection. "Sorry," I said quickly finishing. Placed the band aid on and gave it a kiss.

"Thanks," Alex said.

We walked into the living room, and saw a mask on the table. It looked angry, we decided to take it in case we needed it. Knowing our luck the only way to exit the house would be to complete a series of puzzles. Then we went upstairs. In the hallway by the master bedroom was a cleaver.

"This may come in handy," I said taking it in my free hand.

We proceeded into the bed room and took the stuffed rabbit in the bath tub and indifferent mask on the sinks.

"This mask reminds me of my dad," Alex said taking it.

We went inside Alex and Josh's room and saw there was writing on the wall. It read:

 _'Nobody saw when you were crying on your bed._

 _I wanted to help you, but I hid myself instead._

 _The ticking of the clock, then suddenly not._

 _Fate left me here, in the shadow I will rot._

 _Under my covers the darkness kept me in._

 _Only the daylight can save me from my sin.'_

"I think this has something to do with the windows. We need to open them first though," I said.

"Maybe that clock has something to do with it." Alex walked over to the clock and began to mess with the hands. He set them at all different times and then landed on 2:06. It worked, the windows opened. One window was lit and three were dark.

"We need to put something in the lit one," I said.

"How do you know?"

"The riddle said 'only the daylight can save me', hence put something in the daylight. Did Josh have anything of his that he wanted for comfort?"

"Yeah that rabbit we found. He used to love it," Alex said. He took the rabbit and hung it in the window. There was a sound of something unlocking downstairs. The door.

Alex cut the flesh like paper on the right wall in his room. He squeezed through and came back out with a child's drawing, this one less disturbing, and a carving knife that looked like it had seen a lot of use.

With no where else to go we went back to the first floor hallway. Now there was one light in the bottom left corner lit.

" We must have to unlock all four seals in order to unlock the door," Alex mused.

I pulled the lever we didn't really notice on the wall earlier, we had bigger problems. The gate in front of the kitchen lowered and we walked through. I killed the two swarms of bugs in the kitchen while Alex grabbed the frowning mask on the counter.

"That reminds me of my mother. I mean I never saw her with this expression but it just.." he trailed off.

Inside Lillian's sewing room was a corpse that was crucified.

"What does that say above the corpse?"

"To hide her pain this mask she did wear..." Alex read to me.

"Place the Indifferent mask on this corpse," I told Alex. He set the mask on corpse.

The next corpse had something else written above it.

"Behind this mask her heart was laid bare." Alex read aloud again.

"The frowning mask," I said. "Come on hell house give me a challenge," I laughed.

We heard a faint unlocking sound and another seal was lit at the door. We just had two more to go.


	17. Return to Silent Hill

With another pull of the lever the kitchen was closed off and the attic was opened. Alex and I were much better at finding what we needed so without being prompted we pushed a cabinet out of the way. Under neath where it sat was a military medal, it had an inscription that read "for permitting other to suffer."

Inside the attack was another Schism that Alex killed with a shot gun blast to the head. In a small crevice we also found another medal pinned to a mannequin. The inscription read "For atrocities committed".

"These medals remind me of the ones my Dad earned when he was in the service. Good conduct award, Purple Heart and Silver star," Alex said. He always wanted to make his old man proud and I don't know if he did but he made me proud.

There was another room in the attic, which normally would be where we got the silent hill map from. Inside was a round table and a military jacket on a mannequin.

"I think we need to pin the medals on in a certain order. Any ideas?" I asked Alex.

"Why are you asking me?"

"You know way more about the military than me my handsome soldier." Alex blushed and looked at the medals we had gotten.

"Lets try the order my dad got his medals, seems like it would make sense since its his house." Alex placed the medals in order of the vile acts medal, the heart of darkness medal and the silver star medal. When I ran downstairs to check another corner was lit up, we were one step closer to leaving.

The last puzzle was in the basement in Alex's Dad's hunting room. On the table there was a Schism head and hanging from the ceiling in the corner was its body. Knives seemed to be missing from the wall set and one from the Schism's head.

Using our detective skills, or just luck, we placed the knives where they went based on the dust outlines. Two went on the wall, the cleaver and the carving knife, and the other one went into the Schism head. We had done it. We had successfully done all the puzzles in the Shepherd house and unlocked the door.

Alex turned the valve and the door opened. The house also returned to normal around us. The door shifted into its usual position and we were able to leave. We ran outside and saw Elle running towards us.

"Elle!" I yelled and ran to hug her.

"We thought you were-"

"She's gone," Elle said interrupting Alex.

"Who's gone?" Alex asked as I released her from the hug.

"My mom. I can't find her anywhere. The entire town's gone!"

"I think I know where they are. We found this,"Alex said showing Elle the letter from his dad and the map of Silent Hill. "I'm not sure what it all means, but we need to get to Silent hill."

"Are you serious?" Elle asked looking between Alex and me.

"My dad was serious enough to risk his life going there. That's where Josh and Natalie are, I'm sure of it," Alex said.

"...and everyone else.."

"Probably if this whole Order thing is really happening again," I said. Alex and Elle looked at me. I was about to explain when Wheeler called on the radio.

"Alex, Codi, you there?"

"Wheeler. I thought we lost you," Alex responded

"We found Elle," I added.

"Hell, you're not getting rid of my that easy. And good to hear," Wheeler said.

"Glad to hear it. We have a lot to fill you in on. In the meantime can you get us a boat? We're going to Silent Hill." I shuddered slightly when Alex said it. Hearing it spoken aloud, my return to Silent Hill, just sent something through me.

Wheeler was successful in getting us a boat and met us down at the docks. We boarded and all got comfortable.

"I'm sorry," she said to me and Alex.

"What are you sorry for? This isn't your fault," Alex said.

"No about earlier today, with the flyers..."

"Forget it. I should apologize. Its just.. this place brings back bad memories for me," Alex said.

"I never understood why you left. One day you where here and then just gone. At least Codi had a reason for leaving," Elle said. "Look I didn't say it before, but I'm glad you're both back. I feel safer having the three of us together again. Everything's just been falling apart around us, you know, but you two just keep moving forward."

" I don't have a choice," Alex said.

"Me neither, I need to find Natalie."

"Yes you do. You both could just leave again."

"Alex tell me what you know about Silent Hill besides that whole Order Ordeal," Wheeler said from the helm.

"I know Joshua and I were told a hundred times never to go there. Codi is from there, she could tell you more than I ever could," Alex said.

"My mom was pretty strict about it too," Elle added looking over at the water.

"Once we left my parents said never to return."

"Yeah, well, your parents were right. I can tell you, it all fits. All those things we're seen in Shepherd's Glen, the nightmares..."

"What do you mean?" Alex asked, I already knew the answer. I wish I didn't.

"Silent Hill is what I mean. The place has bad history. Always had," Wheeler said.

"Didn't need to, I heard enough. When I decided to move east, was looking at a job in Brahms, working with the police. At the time they had this cop, I can't remember her name. She had gone to Silent Hill."

"Cybil Bennet," I interuppted.

"What happened to her?" Elle asked.

"No one knows. They found her bike outside of town. But I hear rumors about the people who live there. Lets just say they're not too friendly to people who don't share their beliefs."

"That's because of the Order. That's why we left," I said.

"Yeah. When I met with Alex's father about working in Shepherd's Glen, he told me I would never have to go to Silent Hill," Wheeler said. "I guess there's some sort of irony here."

"Codi do you know much about this Order?" Alex asked me.

"The Order was a religious doomsday cult residing in Silent Hill. Its roots date back as far as the 17th century, but they weren't known as the Order then. Silent Hill became a tourist location in the 1900's and that's when the Order officially formed. The townspeople hated it and the Order carried out their actions in secret.

" As time went on the order infiltrated the public institutions of the town and gained more powers. In the 80's the order was left in shambles and went through a period of inactivity until someone revived it. When we left I think all but one sect was destroyed, I guess we were right. That's why we left, my parents didn't want to be a part of it and didn't want me to be a part of it." I finished telling them about the order and looked at both of them.

"I'm sorry for not telling you guys earlier. I wasn't ever supposed to bring it up, even Natalie doesn't know about it. It was for her safety, look where that got her," I said. Alex placed his hand on mine and gave it a squeeze.

"Do you really think we're gonna find anyone there?" Elle asked. Alex and I just shrugged, we hoped we would. Elle reached behind her and unclasped her necklace.

"I took it from my mother's room the morning Nora disappeared and I haven't taken it off since." Elle held the necklace gently before handing it to Alex.

"Wow.. Look at that hair," Alex said joking about Elle's child hood hair cut.

"That's what real nightmares are made of," I said with a grin.

"Shut up!" Elle said with a laugh. "You guys are jerks. Perfect for each other."

"I'm just happy to see that something has gotten better since I left," Alex said.

"Alex, that sentiment is sweet but still sounds sort of Asshole-ish," I told him.

"Alex, there's a light up ahead. I think we might be at the pier," Wheeler told us. Alex and I got up and went to the helm with Wheeler.

"What should we do?" Alex asked.

"Turn off our light, I don't want anybody to know we're coming," Wheeler said. Then Elle screamed. We snapped our head around to see some guys, the same guys from Alex's house, snatch Elle and put her in their boat.

"Elle!" I yelled and tried to grab her, but she was too far.

I turned around see Wheeler struggling against two more members of the order. Alex pulled out his gun and pointed it at the guys who had Elle.

"Let go of her," he demanded. But another boat hit ours and Alex knocked his head on the side of the boat and fell into the water. I had to make a choice save Alex, or try to save Elle and Wheeler on my own.


	18. On your left you'll see

I dove into the water after Alex and brought him to the surface. The Order was speeding off in their boats towards the shore. I couldn't get Alex into the boat so I swam us both to shore. Thank goodness I did swim team all those years.

On the shore I gave Alex mouth to mouth until he woke up. He coughed out some water and then sat up.

"Where's Elle and Wheeler?" he asked.

"The Order got them. I had to save you though, I couldn't take the Order on my own." I told him wringing out my hair. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Thank you. You've saved my ass countless times since we've both returned. Thank you Codi," Alex said.

"Its a nice butt. Besides I'm in love with you, I can't loose you too. For all I know I may have already lost my parents," I said.

"We'll find them Codi. Don't worry."

I helped Alex up and lead him up onto Sagan Street. We began to walk down the street towards the rest of town when Wheeler called us.

"Alex, Codi,are you there?" Wheeler asked.

"Wheeler, is that you?"

"Talk quietly Alex. Thank God you're okay. Listen, they've taken us to the prison. Its horrible. They took Elle and they're about to-"

Static over took the radio and we couldn't hear Wheeler anymore. Alex tried to regain the signal but to no avail.

"Do you know how to get to the prison?" Alex asked

"Yeah. Its not too far, come on." I lead Alex through Silent Hill pointing out some land marks along the way. Luckily not much had changed since I live here, at least so far. We made it to the Prison gate on Sagan Street.

"I remember my dad and several deputies were sent here to help stop a riot..." Alex remembered aloud. "It was six days before he came back home, but he never once spoke about what happened over here."

"Lets just call Wheeler," I said.

"Wheeler, are you there? Wheeler, come in," Alex said.

"Alex! Thank God. Is Codi with you? Where are you?" Wheeler asked whispering on the other end.

"I'm here Wheeler. We're at the Prison entrance on Sagan Street, but we can't get it in," I said.

"Good you're not separated. There's an entrance on the other side. That's your best chance," Wheeler told us. "Be careful," he said before hanging up.

We ran over to the rest of the central silent hill district careful to avoid the lurker on the way. We passed through a construction thing and ended up on Simmons Street.

"Wheeler, we're at the rear entrance. The gate is electrified," said Alex much louder than he needed to.

"Damn it," Wheeler said on the other end.

"It looks like they're running power from across the street-"

"Tolucca water and electric company," I interjected.

"We'll find a way to shut it off," Alex finished.

"What about Elle is she okay?" I asked taking the walkie from Alex.

"I haven't hear anything, but who knows what those monsters are dong to her!" Wheeler answered not making me feel any better. "You need to hurry!" With that he hung up.

Being Alex's Silent Hill tour guide was pretty easy minus the monsters. I lead him to the boiler room where we foun a health drink and then onto Koontz Street. The main entrance to Tolucca Lake Water and Electric was there. The main entrance was open and we escaped inside just before a feral could attack us. I slammed the door shut and heard the monster's head collide with a thud followed by a whimper.

Reception inside was a mess covered in dust and some ash. Alex had a map for this place which was good since I had never actually been inside of it. Following the map we went through the lower landing, the offices and the break room to get the power key.

Inside the power room were two people from the order. Alex took care of the one while I shot the other, I didn't want to get too close to something smarter than the monsters. Especially if that something had it's only weapon.

After the Order member were dead we analyzed the map of the generator system. Station A controls the water feed. Station B controls the Boiler. And Station C controls the Steam feed.

"Alex you're good at this stuff, is there a certain order to turn these things off in?" I asked. I may be good at puzzles but I was almost useless when it came to mechanics. I say almost since I can at least change my tire on my own.

"I don't know this system well enough to say. And I'm not that good at this stuff either. Lets look around, maybe there's something that can give us a clue," He said.

We climbed up the ladder and right by the workers room there was a clip board. It said there were new systems fail safes and the generators would only shut down if the right sequence is followed. The only hint it gave us was that the boiler needed to be shut down first.

Alex shut off the boiler and then I shut off the water like Alex suggested. With those two shut down we could turn the generator off with the steam feed. When all those valves were shut down a green light lit up next to the lever for the complete shut down. I pulled it and the whole generator shut down making the room go dark. The power was off.

Before we could return to the prison two more Order member attacked us. They had the upper hand since I had terrible night vision. And one had a rifle which didn't help us. Alex took out the other one white I snuck up behind the guy with the rifle and plunged my knife into the back of his head killing him almost instantly.

Back at the prison the gate was off and safe to touch. Unfortunately there was also a Siam to take care of. After Alex killed the Siam we ran inside the rear gate to Overlook Penitentiary. We ran to the front of the prison, well actually jogged, and went inside. It was time to rescue Wheeler and Elle.


	19. Visiting Hours Are Now Over

Back at the prison the gate was off and safe to touch. Unfortunately there was also a Siam to take care of. After Alex killed the Siam we ran inside the rear gate to Overlook Penitentiary. We ran to the front of the prison, well actually jogged, and went inside. It was time to rescue Wheeler and Elle.

We came into the Visitor Station and got a call from a one deputy waiting to be rescued.

"Alex where are you two?" Wheeler asked.

"We're inside the prison."

"Okay. I'm up in Cell Black B. Come and get me already!"Wheeler said.

"Wow someone is not very patient," I said.

With the other Silent Hill maps Alex's dad had left he didn't leave one of the prison. We were on our own until we found a map. Traversing the prison wasn't too difficult though aside from avoiding the dead bodies laying around.

Getting to cell block B was fairly easy minus the Order members here and there that we had to fight.

"Hey nice work back there. When this is over I'm buying the first rounds, and then the second," Wheeler said limping out of his cell.

"Can you walk?" Alex asked.

"Walk,run,fly..Shit, I may be a little slow but whatever the hell it takes to get out of here lets do it," Wheeler said.

"Where's Elle?" I asked.

"They split us up when we got here. But I heard them say something about taking a woman to solitary."

"Then that's where we're going," I said.

"We gotta get back to the guard station," Wheeler said.

"Got it. Come on," Alex said leading the way.

We were about to leave Cell Block B when a Siam dropped down and blocked the exit.

"Fuck!" we all said.

"You cuff him. I'll read him his rights," Wheeler said. I took that to mean we'll distract him while Wheeler puts it down for good. At least I hope that's what he meant. Either way Alex and I kept its back turned and Wheeler put the thing down for good.

Wheeler opened the other exit and we followed him back to the guard tower. Back where that panel was.

"It looks like I can control the entire prison from this panel," Wheeler said. "Yes it works!" he exclaimed after messing with it for a minute. "Okay we need to split up. Now here's what you do. Head across the catwalk to the locked bars on the far side. Now get out of here!"

Alex and I went to solitary to find Elle while Wheeler kept and eye on us and directed us. He also opened all the gate for us until we got to solitary

"OK Wheeler. We found a keypad but it looks broken," Alex said calling Wheeler. "We're going to search for a way to fix it."

It turned out the power was off and we needed to find some spare wires to fix it. We took a loose wire from the headlight of crashed truck, a radio wire and a scrap of wire from the guard station. Once we had all the wires in the box Alex rewired them and turned on the power. The code to the keypad was in a cell we couldn't open until we turned the power on.

I plugged the code into the key pad '110391', the key pad make a noise signaling the door was open. We ran inside and nothing could have prepared us for what we saw.

The woman they were talking about wasn't Elle, but Alex's mother. She was on a crucifix with her hands bound above her head.

"Mom," Alex said taking a step closer to her. "Jesus what did they do?"

"Alex? Is that you?" she asked.

"Mom, we're gonna, we're gonna get you down," He went to get her down but she gasped in pain. He jumped back and she screamed.

"I'm sorry Alex," she whimpered.

"Shh.. it's okay," He said trying to comfort his mother. I could only look on in horror.

"You're father and I, we loved you so much. But they said we could only choose one."

"Mom..please..stop.. Save your breath," Alex said.

"Let me go, Alex." She cried.

"I can't..."

"Its hurts so much. Make it stop. Make it stop." she cried in pain. He tried to protest but she begged him. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at her head, he was about to shoot...

"I can't," he said lowering his gun.

"Its okay, Alex," Mrs. Lillian said.

Alex let out a heavy breathe and raised his gun again. He aimed and pulled the trigger but not before his mom said "I love you".

Alex lowered his gun and the contraption lowered his mother. The Prison began to change into that nightmare.

"My god. Why did I shoot her? I could have tried to save her.." he said looking at hi mother. I pulled Alex down into a hug and tried to comfort him.

"She wanted this Alex. She was in pain and you saved her from it." I whispered into his ear while stroking his hair. He began to cry into my shoulder and there was nothing else I could do to comfort him. We stood there like that until he calmed down.

"I'm alright now," he said wiping his eyes on his jacket sleeve. "Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? For being upset about loosing your mother? Alex that's fine, I'm here for you through thick and thin. For better or worse. I love you and being in love with someone means being in love with them no matter what," I said taking his hand.

"I love you too." he said.

We left that room as soon as we could going back the way we came. In the middle of the room a cylinder rose up. There was a black box that sucked something inside. Around the room were signs with riddles. I wondered what the riddles were for until I saw the dials with multiple symbols on them on the cylinder in the room.

The first riddle was:

 _'I stand beside the Holy Man_

 _The Monarchs fear my wrath_

 _None may move the way I can_

 _ever the crooked path'_

"What do you think it means?" Alex asked.

"I think its a knight. The monarchs are scared of them. They stand beside the bishops in chess, the holy man and they move diagonally," I said going to turn the dial to the knight.

The next riddle was:

 _'The man who devised it_

 _Does not want it_

 _The man who bought it_

 _Does not use it_

 _The man who used it_

 _Does not realize it'_

I looked at all the symbols on the dial and only coffin fit as the right answer. The man who made it doesn't want to die to use it, the man who bought it doesn't use it and the guy who uses it is dead and can't realize he used it.

The last riddle read:

 _'What man loves more than life_

 _Fears more than death or mortal suffering_

 _What poor men have, the rich acquire_

 _and all contended men desire_

 _What Misers spend and wastrels save_

 _and each man carries to his grave.'_

There was no symbol to fit this. There was a heart, a horseshoe, a clock, and a dollar sign. But none of them fit the only spot I could think to try was the blank one.

"Nothing, of course," I said feeling like an idiot.

"Nothing what?" Alex asked.

"That's the answer. Man loves nothing more than life and fears nothing more than death. Poor men have nothing and each man carries nothing to his grave." I turned the dial and heard a click. I went to put my arm in but Alex stopped me.

"I'll do it. I don't want you to get hurt." Before I could protest he put his arm in the hole and pulled something. Then the column rose into the ceiling and the only way to go was down.

"Well Ladies first,"I said as I jumped down the hole.


	20. Nasty Nora

Down the hole it was dark, as to be expected. I could feel someone creeping up on me, I felt their footsteps. I spun around and pointed my gun at them. It was just Wheeler, I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank god you're alive. I was about to go looney tunes in this roach motel. Where's Alex?" Then Alex dropped down the hole. He still looked pretty sad.

"What is it?" Wheeler asked picking up on it.

"I found my mother," Alex answered. "I couldn't save her."

"You did all you could," I said placing my hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Alex. I'm afraid I got more bad news... I found this on one of those Order soldiers I roughed up," Wheeler said handing a crumpled sheet of paper with names on it.

"That's Elle's name," I said pointing to the paper.

"Then we gotta get out of here," Alex said back in fighting mode.

"Let's go team," Wheeler said. Alex lead us out of the shower area and into the boiler room.

"God where the hell are we?" Wheeler asked running behind us.

"I don't know. But we have to keep moving," I said following Alex.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Down the steps. Left. Left. These hallways went on forever. That is until we came to a room with two needlers, just out luck. Then there were more endless hallways and screaming of pain from somewhere in the distance. Finally we came to a door that seemed to have swords acting as locks. Alex opened the door and we all ran inside.

"Judge Holloway!" Alex exclaimed. Judge Holloway was bound to a chair in the center of the gas chamber.

"Alex! Codi!" she said.

"Quick, you get her loose before they start pumping the gas. I'll shut off the valves," Wheeler said. Alex and I ran over to Judge Holloway and began to free her from her chair prison.

"Alex, Codi, thank God. How did you two find me?" she asked as we began to undo her bindings.

"We don't have time to talk. We've got to get you out of here," Alex said. When Alex helped her stand up Elle's locket fell out of his pocket, I had forgotten he even had it.

"What is that?" Judge Holloway asked. "Where did you get that?"

"It's Elle's," I said picking it up.

"Elle? Where is she? Is she okay?" Judge Holloway asked.

"I don't know. We'll find her, though. I promise," Alex said.

"She said she took this from you,so.. I guess you should have it back." I gave Judge Holloway her locket back, she looked frightened.

"This wasn't min. It belonged to Nora," she said walking away.

"Nora?"

"They turned on the gas-"

Something shout out from a gooey black hole in the wall and began to pull Wheeler in. Alex and I ran over to try and pull him out but whatever grabbed him was too strong.

"Run! Get out! Get out of here! We'll save Wheeler!" Alex yelled at Judge Holloway. But she just held out the locket to the hole.

"Go!" I yelled. She ran and I swear before the door closed I saw her smirk, it was probably just a trick of the light though. The door locked behind her and we heard Wheeler fight against the monster.

It finally stopped and the monster crawled out to attack us.

"Jesus Christ look at that thing!"

"Holly fuck!" we yelled.

The monster looked like some sort of centipede with multiple arms on its torso and on its abdomen too. It even moved like one. But upon closer inspection, not that it was easy to inspect it it was actually multiple torso morphed together.

The monster crawled towards us and I dodged it. Alex sliced at the upper most torso. It swung its arm at him and hit him. I hit it's abdomen a couple times to get it attention. It spun around and tried to spit acid at me. I jumped back and as soon as I could hit it again I did so.

Once we figured out the pattern and warning of the monsters attacks it became pretty easy to beat it. Its weak spot was its abdomen tail thing. I was hitting it when it grabbed Alex and hoisted him into the air.

"Kick its face Alex!" I yelled. The monster was about to spit acid when Alex kicked in its teeth. Did this thing even have teeth?With Alex back down on the battle ground , literally, we went back to work.

After taking in too much pain the monster slouched over regaining some strength. Alex jumped onto its back and it reared up. He grabbed the arms at the shoulders and began to pull them back. The monster thrashed around and shrieked at the window breaking the glass.

I looked over to eh window and saw Josh and Natalie run by.

"Josh! Natalie!" I called to them, they looked at me and then continued running.

We chased after them following them outside the prison and to what looked like a church. They were colouring in front of it and humming.

When they heard us they took off towards the church. I will never understand how they can sneak post those smogs but some how they did it and left us to take care of it. Twice.

They could've only cone into the church so that's where we were going. We were entering the Order's old church. The Church of the Holy Way.


	21. Take me to Church

On the back row of pews was a map of the church. I don't see why a church needed a map though, I mean how confusing can it be.

At the front of the church was a beautiful organ covering the whole wall. The front of the orgran had a slit for the dagger. When turned we heard two gates unlock, probably the west and east wing. Also the front popped open to have places for five plates.

The five plates were scattered around the church, we went to check the East wing first after killing the schism that appeared.

In the east wing there was a a baptismal font with something, or someone in it. Alex turned the valve on the side and the font opened. A swarm popped out and I killed them quick. The floating corpse was holding a golden plate. I carefully removed it, the chalice plate."

"These are a little heavy to carry around. Let's put them in the pews," I said.

"What if someone or something steals them?" Alex asked not too keen on my idea.

"Yes, because a schism so wants a golden plate." Alex gave in and we put the plate on the frnot pew.

On the second floor of the east wing there was a confessional. There seemed to be a man inside Alex and I squeezed in.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinner. It has been four years since my last confession," the man said. "I don't blame you for ignoring me, father. I'm not even sure you can help me. I'm lost. I'm so deep beyond the reach of my faith and I'm sinking further away."

I nudged Alex to speak, I couldn't since I was a girl and my man voice was not at all believable.

"What could you have done that was so terrible?" he asked.

"I took my role as a father and I turned it into a daily chore. Fed him, cleaned him, put him to bed. I treated the dog with more respect. And when I was given a second son, the first might as well have been a stranger sleeping in our house." This guy sounded like Alex's dad. I think Alex picked up on it because of his response.

"I feel that you could start loving your son at any time."

"I do love my son, Father. I love both my sons. But I had to make a choice, and the only way to live with that was to make sure my son never loved me. I had to make sure that he would never feel joy or compassion, all the things that make life worth living. You must understand, I was only trying to make things easier for him...and for me. And for this selfishness, I ask forgiveness."

"If you truly want forgiveness, then you already have it." It warmed my heart to see Alex connecting and understanding the guy I presumed to be his father.

"Thank you, Father. And now I have something for you, Father."

"I don't need anything from you."

We heard the door open and on the other side of the confessional was another plate. The kneeling man plate. We picked up an unlit candle that looked out of place before returning downstairs.

"Alex I think that man was your father," I said.

"It sure sounded like him. Do you think all that stuff he said was true?"

"Sounded like it. I'm glad you forgive him. How does it feel?"

"Okay I guess. I mean I have no idea if that really was my father."

We ducked under the stacked pews and two schisms came at us. Alex hit them with the shotgun and I ran to set the plate on the pew.

Next we explored the west wing. There was a statue of someone crying, they were holding what looked like another plate. The altar in front of it looked to be missing something. A candle. When we placed the candle there and lit it the statue moved it arms so we could reach the plate and the gate to the second floor of the West wing opened. I grabbed the plate and we trekked upstairs.

There were three paintings upstairs depicting a man trying to win over a woman. I decided to cut open the tree painting thinking it would be a good idea. It was not. A swarm came out and in my panic I didn't kill them. For once Alex did.

"Okay you pick which one to cut next," I said stepping back. Alex cut open the painting with the desiring man and grabbed the tree plate from behind it. He looked at me and smirked.

"Shut up," I said sticking my tongue out at him.

We just had one more plate to get and it had to be in the West wing. There was another hallway and in there was the sword plate in front of the stain glass windows. The windows weren't too bad actually. That is until a Siam knocked us back to the first floor in front of the organ. One too wasn't bad but then another decided to join the party.

"Attacking people is a sin right?" I asked taking a fighting stance back-to-back with Alex.

"I think so."

"What do you say we take these guys to church."

Every time I swung my ax I could feel my arms tiring. I killed one Siam around the same time Alex killed his. It felt weird killing so many things in a church. But luckily I wasn't religious enough to put too much thought into it.

At the organ we had to figure out where to put the plates. Our only clues were: Penitence, Vengeance, Desire, Sorrow and Sacrifice.

"I know Kneeling man would be penitence since praying is penitence," I said. Alex put the plate in that prong.

"The sword would be vengeance since you use a sword for vengeance usually," Alex said putting the plate in.

"And the tree would go for desire since the paintings were about desire." I put the plate in this time. The candle plate went to the sorrow prong and the sacrifice prong went with the chalice plate.

The organ opened up to reveal Alex's Dad held in chains.

"Dad?" Alex asked walking towards him.

"Mr. Shepherd?" I asked when he didn't react at first.

"Alex? Codi? What are you two doing here?" he asked lifting his head. He sounded exhausted.

"I'm here to save Joshua and Natalie," Alex answered.

"Joshua? You can't save him. You need to get out of here."

"Stop giving me orders, Dad. You have no idea what I'm capable of." Alex told his Dad.

"You hate me. Its okay. I don't blame you."

"I don't hate you. I forgot you.. a long time ago."

"I never meant to hurt you son. I had to make a choice, and I'm paying for it. We all are."

"After all I've done, you still wear my old dog tags.. that must mean something." Alex looked down at his dog tags in confusion.

"What are you talking about? These are mine. I'm a soldier.. Just like you wanted," Alex growled gripping his dog tags.

"Alex.. you've been in the hospital," his father said.

"I know, I was wounded in battle." Alex's radio started to produce static.

"No.. A mental hospital. You've been there ever since the accident." _What accident?_

"No.. That's not true. I'm a soldier. I protect people," Alex said in denial. Alex was never in a mental hospital.

"We had to take you there.. after that night. After I gave your brother this." Mr. Shepherd unclenched his left fist. He let a necklace with the a ring hang down. Alex took the necklace.

"What is this thing? What did you do? Where's Joshua? Where's Natalie?" Alex demanded holding the ring up.

"Alex forgive me," Mr. Shepherd said. The figure we saw from the hotel, the one with the pyramid helmet walked up from behind him.

"No!" Alex and I yelled as the monster plunged his sword into Mr. Shepherd's back. It swung the sword up ripping him in half and then the monster walked away dragging his bloody sword.

We followed the direction the monster went and it lead us under ground into what looked like a mine shaft. We couldn't go to the right because there was steam that would burn us, so we went left. There was some mining equipment that looked like it hadn't been used in ages. This could protect us from the gas. I put on my mining equipment and so did Alex before we ran through the gas.

On the other side we called the elevator and Curtis was inside. _Why is Curtis here?_ I thought.

"Going down?" Curtis asked. We nodded and got in the elevator.

"Like your job soldier? I love what I do...fixing things...its my gift. But now I have a direction..clarity." Curtis took a drag of his cigarette.

"Its important to know who you are," Curtis said before the elevator came to a stop. He held out his arm to say 'after you'. When we walked out he hit us both in the back and we collapsed on the ground. The last thing I remember was Curtis saying,

"Don't you agree.. Soldier?"


	22. The Truth comes out

I woke strapped to a chair. I was alone there was a bright light right in my eyes. I tried to look around, it looked like I was in an exam room or operating room.

The door opened and in walked a man I'd never seen before. He ran his fingers over multiple knives and finally landed on one. He looked at me and smiled.

"This will be fun. Don't worry I'll make it last," he said walking over to me.

"Let me go!" I yelled in his face.

"Its not polite to yell in people's faces. But I'm nice and will forgive you. Any last words?" he asked.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Margaret said to."

"Why?"

"The founders of your town had good intentions. They left the order for the same reason your parent's did. They wanted to start a new life. But they feared the wrath of god and made a pact to keep the town safe." he explained. "All that was required was a small sacrifice...Our children. Once every fifty years the founding families must make an offering to appease the God. That means killing one of their children."

"She killed Nora then? And Fitch killed Scarlet and..." I put all the pieces together in my mind. _That must have been what happened to Joshua_ I thought.

"Yes they did. But then the Shepherd's screwed it all up and the God was angry. Adam lacked the strength to go through with it." the man said clenching the knife tight.

"Where's Joshua? Where's Natalie?" I asked trying to break free from my restraints.

"We had to revive the order. The true faith." he said.

"So kidnapping and murdering were the answers?!"

"There was no other choice."

"There's always a choice!" I yelled. "So what are you going to do now kill me?" I asked growling at him.

"You're just like you're friends Elle and Soldier boy. You don't understand and now you know too much." He dragged the knife across my thigh and I let out a scream. He was about to slice me again when the door burst open. Alex!

"Get away from her!" Alex demanded point his gun at the man.

"Or you'll shoot me? I don't think so-"

Alex pulled the trigger and shot the man between the eyes. The shot rang through out the room. Alex ran over to me and undid my restraints. When I was free I threw my arms around him.

"I'm so glad you're okay." I said burring my face into his neck. He wrapped his arms around me kissed my shoulder.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. Judge Holloway-"

"I know all about it. Did you find Elle?" I asked pulling back a bit.

"Not yet, but we'll find her. Can you walk?"

"Yeah just hand me that med kit over there." Alex got up and handed me the med kit. I patched up my leg the best I could and we were off to find Elle.

The bunker was huge and finding Elle proved to be harder than we thought. There were locked doors and Order members everywhere. At some point I noticed Alex had a limp.

"Alex what happened? You're limping?"

"Holloway stuck a power drill in my leg. I'm fine though."

"You know that's the biggest lie people tell. Let me at least put a band aid on it." Alex held still while I put the band aid on and then we continued our search for the last member of the C.A.E (Codi, Aex and Elle) team.

When we found Elle Curtis was about to cut her up with a circle saw. _This bastard is not going to touch a hair on her head_ I thought pulling out my gun. I shot the glass out that separated the two room and then fire multiple rounds into his chest and then his head. He collapsed to the floor and shook before he finally died.

"Alex, Codi.. my mother," She said as we speedily freed her.

"I'm sorry Elle," Alex said.

"Oh God, I can't believe this."

"Elle we need to get you out of here," I said helping her up.

With her help we made our ways towards the exit. The ritual chamber. In room 112 we found Wheeler, he appeared to be beyond hope.

"We need to try and save him," I said pulling out a med kit. We managed to stabilize Wheeler, or it seemed so. Alex and I walked to room 111.

"Elle you need to get Wheeler out of here. We'll meet you at the surface," Alex said before we left. Together we continued down the corridor to the ritual chamber.

On the floor in the room before the ritual chamber were two rings, a large ring and a smaller on inside it. Using the ceremonial dagger we read all the clues. We figured the symbols we needed were the human symbol in the bottom right slot and the eye slot to be right behind it or next to it depending how you look at it.

We used the control panel to set the rings and then the double doors opened to reveal a smaller scale puzzle of the same sort.

"There are no clues for this on," Alex said stating the obvious. "How are we supposed to open it?"

"Lets see if there are any symbols that look like they should go together... Aha here. These two are reminiscent of water." I spun the rings until they were in the position for the symbols and when I did the doors clicked and opened up.

"Ready?" I asked Alex.

"Ready." he said.


	23. Its Finally Over

The ritual chamber was dull and void of emotion. Four stone coffins sat around the circle on the floor.

"Are these coffins or altars?" I asked aloud reading the plaques. They were all names of those who were sacrificed. Scarlet, Nora, Joseph and... Alex?

"Wait why is my name here?" Alex asked. "Wait was I supposed to..."Alex ran his fingers over his name before he got lost in a trance.

"Alex?" I asked trying to get his attention. "Alex sweetheart, please?" He didn't respond again. I decided to look around the chamber more. Near one corner of the wall was a necklace.

"This is Natalie's. What's it doing here?" I said picking it up. I was hit by a wave of memories. I turned around and I was back home.

 _Natalie and I were in the living room watching a movie._

 _"OK girls your father and I will be back this Sunday. Remember if you need anything to go to the Shepherds. Emergency numbers are on the fridge, Codi you're in charge." Mother said coming into the room._

 _Mother was wearing a deep red dress that flowed out from her hips. Her blonde hair was curled and pulled back into a low side bun. She wore red lipstick that drew your attention to her lips instead of her gorgeous eyes. Mother was always very pretty, I wish I had inherited more of that._

 _"They'll be fine Cassidy. Codi is almost 18 she can take care of herself and Natalie," my father said coming down the steps. He wore a black suit and his brown hair was slicked back._

 _"I know they'll be fine, I just worry about them both so much." Father looked at me and we rolled our eyes._

"I remember this," I said though no one could hear me. "They were going to a gala at Father's old company.."

 _Natalie and I had slept on the couch that night. We were woken by the doorbell ringing through the halls. I got up, telling Natalie to go back to bed, before answering the door. Two police officers stood there looking very somber._

 _"Good morning officers, how may I help you?" I asked trying to fix my hair so it looked more like hair and less like a rat's nest._

 _"Is this the Martina household?" the one asked._

 _"Yes, is something wrong?" I asked._

 _"Yes there is. Last night your parents were to attend a gala in Silent Hill, they never arrived. When they didn't check in we were asked to make sure everything was okay. We're sorry to inform you miss that your parents were both killed in a car crash."_

 _"Are you sure it was my parents?" I asked. I didn't want it to be, they couldn't be gone._

 _"Yes ma'am. We're very sorry for your loss. We know this is all very sudden but we will need you to come down to the station and identify the bodies sometime soon."_

 _"I will. Are they at the Shepherd's Glen police station?" I asked._

 _"Yes ma'am. Whenever you are ready to id them you can come down. We're very sorry for your loss." The men were polite and gave me all the information I needed to know._

 _Alex went down to the station with me while Natalie was at Scarlet's playing. When I went to college Natalie was sent to live with our aunt Claudia in Silent Hill._

 _Later that year I got a letter saying Josh had passed away, I even remember the funeral. Natalie couldn't stop crying and wouldn't let them lower the coffin. Mr. Shepherd had to hold her back._

I was back in the ritual chamber and felt water on my face. I ran my hand over my cheek and it was tears. I was crying. I looked over at Alex and he was out of his trance too.

"Alex?" I asked walking over to him.

"No.." he said. Then the air raid siren went off and the ritual chamber changed. The altars sunk into the ground and the floor peeled away.

I could hear creaking behind us and an Arachnid like monster was there. I was about to take a shot at it when it spewed acid at me. I rolled to the side and took another shot at its legs. It fell backwards and walked towards us. I could now see its weakness, its stomach.

Alex kept it distracted while I ran in and began to slash at its stomach with the knife. It bled all over me and finally after Alex and I had dealt enough damage I cut its stomach open all the way. The monster thrashed wildly and Josh and Natalie slid out onto the floor.

I ran over to Natalie and Alex to Josh.

"Natalie? Natalie speak to me sweetie." I said shaking her a bit. He green eyes slowly opened and she looked at me.

"Codi? Where are we?" she asked.

"Oh thank Christ you're okay!" I exclaimed pulling her into a hug.

"Is that Josh?" Natalie asked looking over my shoulder. I turned to see Josh, he was dead. Alex was crying over his body.

"I'm sorry Josh," he said. Alex put the necklace around Josh's neck. "I never meant for this to happen." I walked over to Alex, telling Natalie to stay where she is.

"Here buddy..take this..." Alex said giving the flashlight back to Josh to keep away the nightmares. I placed my hand on Alex's shoulder and came down to his level, he looked at me. "I forgot...Josh...I'm sorry."

Alex turned around and wrapped his arms around and began to cry. I looked at Josh, this was the accident Mr. Shepherd was talking about. I held Alex in my arms while he cried. He had lost so much today while I hadn't. It wasn't fair...

"Its okay Alex. Josh forgives you," I cooed in his ear stroking his hair.

When Alex had calmed down Natalie came over to us and the three of us walked out together.

We excited through a man hole. Elle was in the alley waiting for us.

"Elle. You're okay?" Alex asked her.

"Yeah. I think so." Elle pulled us both into a hug. "What did you guys see in there?" she asked.

"What we needed to." I said. Elle pulled us into another hug.

I helped Alex walk while Natalie held Elle's hand. We walked into Silent Hill a group of different people than we were when we came out.


	24. Happily Ever After

It had been three years since Alex and I went back to Shepherd's Glen. Alex and I had gotten married and moved to New York with Natalie. Elle left too and so did Wheeler, there was nothing left for anyone in Shepherd's Glen.

"Natalie get ready. We're supposed to be at Auntie Elle's soon!" I called up the steps to Natalie.

"Coming!" Natalie came down the stairs sliding on her black flats. She was 14 now and looked so much like Mother did in old pictures.

Natalie's hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and she wore a black t-shirt with skinny jeans. She didn't seem to remember much of what had happened and Alex and I agreed it was best to leave it that way.

"Where's Alex?" I asked.

"I think he was in the bathroom shaving or something," Natalie said. "And you yell at me to hurry up."

"He should have shaved this morning. I'll go see what he is doing."

I walked up the steps past school photos, vacation photos and my favourite my wedding photo. I stopped and smiled at it.

I was wearing a strapless wedding dress that flowed out at the bottom. My hair was in an up do shaped like a rose and I had the biggest smile on my face. Wheeler walked me down the isle, he was also Alex's best man, and Elle was my maid of honour. It was a small ceremony but was one of the best of my life.

Upstairs I walked into the main hall bathroom and found Alex. His face was covered in shaving cream and he held a razor in his left hand.

"Couldn't you have shaved this morning?" I asked leaning on the door frame.

"Yeas, but you wanted me to stay in bed with you," Alex said running the razor down his face. He looked at me in the mirror and smiled, his wedding ring catching the light.

Since Silent Hill Alex had been doing better. Few nightmares here and there and some medication and he was fine. He still missed Josh and never fully recovered but he recovered enough to stay with me.

After Alex shaved and put on clothes we were ready to go to Elle's. She lived about 15 minutes away from us and Natalie had come to know he as Auntie Elle.

We got in the car and backed out of the driveway. Looking at the house and my family I smiled, I was home. I was married to the man I loved and still got to see my sister grow up. I got to see Elle every week and was happy and safe. Silent Hill was always in the back of my mind but as the years went by it faded to no more than a shadow compared to all the happy memories.

All was well.

 **Sorry for the crappy ending. I'm happy to say that this is my first completed fanfiction. I really hope you guys enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun for me. I'm so proud I finished this and I'm sorry there wasn't much horror or mystery with Codi but I didn't feel it necessary to her character. I thought she would just be that smart girl next door. Please tell me if you enjoyed it and check out my other stories. Thanks again for your continued support.**


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